Most known populations are concentrated in small valleys near Clusone, especially within the Borlezza hydrogeographic basin, with isolated records from Valcanale, Val Nossana and Val Conchetta. The perennial plant grows on dolomitic debris cones, generally on poorly developed and well-drained soils from 450 to 1,250 metres above sea level. Field observations indicated stable subpopulations, with no continuous decline observed or estimated.

Some populations crossed by motocross and mountain-bike trails were threatened by trampling. The assessors also identified habitat modification as debris cones become colonized by shrubs and trees, landslides or cliff collapse associated with erosion, and potentially increasing drought and extreme weather as future threats. Because the species was recently described, the assessors said further information on its range, reproductive biology and ecology was needed to plan in situ and ex situ conservation.

Preliminary experiments at Milan’s Città Studi Botanical Garden indicated low germination rates, although the available evidence did not establish general reproductive success. Campanula bergomensis is not protected by international, national or regional law, but populations in Val Nossana, Val Bielone, Romentareck, Val dei Mulini and Monte Simer fall within two Natura 2000 Special Areas of Conservation. The assessors called for its inclusion in Lombardy Region’s protection list.

Iris hippolyti is a perennial geophyte endemic to the Kokchatau and Karatau remnant low mountains in the eastern Kyzylkum Desert of Uzbekistan. The two mountain areas cover approximately 2.5 km² and reach a maximum elevation of 447 metres above sea level. Until 2018, the species was known from one population at Kokchatau, where an estimated 300 individuals were recorded in 2015; the count was 138 in 2020.

A second subpopulation with fewer than 40 individuals was documented in Karatau in 2022, bringing the assessed global population to 175 individuals. For Iris hippolyti, the assessors calculated an extent of occurrence and area of occupancy of 8 km² each and identified two locations based on the principal threats. They recorded a 54% observed decline in individual numbers over 10 years, continuing declines in habitat extent and quality and mature individuals, and a continuous decline in mature individuals.

Livestock grazing, recreation and associated habitat destruction were documented threats: satellite imagery showed that more than 2,000 m² of habitat had been destroyed for recreational activities near the Zafarabad settlement. Severe late-February frost events, occurring approximately once every five to six years, were also reported to cause significant juvenile mortality. The species was classified as Endangered under criteria B1b(iii, v) + 2b(iii, v) + D.

Iris hippolyti is listed as Category 1, or Critically Endangered, in Uzbekistan’s National Red Book and has been introduced into cultivation at the Tashkent Botanical Garden. The assessors described reintroduction of cultivated individuals as essential and identified reinforced in situ conservation, protected ex situ cultivation, bioclimatic modelling and identification of suitable areas as proposed elements of a conservation strategy. These actions were recommendations, not evidence of recovery.

Stipa aktauensis is a perennial tussock grass distributed across the Kuldzhuktau, Auminzatau, Bukantau, Tamditau, Muruntau, Aktau and Sultan-Uizdag remnant mountains in Uzbekistan’s Kyzylkum Desert. It grows on dry gravelly slopes and rock cracks at altitudes from 400 to 700 metres above sea level and can reach 25–30 cm in height. Livestock grazing was identified as a continuing pressure because it directly consumes plants, degrades habitat, limits regeneration and increases soil erosion.

Mining and energy-related development were also reported, including exploration for light metals and marble in Kuldzhuktau, construction of wind-power stations in Kuldzhuktau and Tamditau, and expanding stone-crushing and gravel production at Sultan-Uizdag. The assessment calculated an extent of occurrence of 32,725 km² but an area of occupancy of 44 km², identified five locations, and recorded continuing declines in range, occupancy, habitat extent and quality, subpopulations and mature individuals. Stipa aktauensis was classified as Endangered under criterion B2ab(i, ii, iii, iv, v).

The assessors reported that earlier cultivation attempts at a Kyzylkum desert station were unsuccessful and that its seeds were not conserved in any germplasm bank. They recommended research and monitoring to clarify reproductive biology, ecology, threats and population trends, together with ex situ measures including establishment of a seed bank.

Subject of Research: Global IUCN Red List assessments of three narrow-range vascular plants in Italy and Uzbekistan

Article Title: Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 17

Article References: Fenu, G., Caccianiga, M., Khabibullaev, B. S., Mangili, F., Shomurodov, K. F., Valle, B., & Orsenigo, S. (2024). Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 17. Italian Botanist, 18, 141-153. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.139285

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.139285

Keywords: IUCN Red List, Campanula bergomensis, Iris hippolyti, Stipa aktauensis, Italy, Uzbekistan, Kyzylkum Desert, plant conservation, endangered species, Global, Regional, IUCN

Oryza rhizomatis, known locally as Uru wee and in English as rhizomatous rice, is a perennial grass endemic to Sri Lanka, where it is restricted to the low-altitude dry zone of the eastern and southwestern parts of the island. Field records place it in only six administrative districts — Puttalam, Anuradhapura, Kurunagala, Hambantota, Monaragala and Ampara — in forests and open tall scrub with grassy clearings, typically in swampy or periodically flooded areas under full sun or partial shade. The dry zone where it grows receives between 850 and 1,900 millimeters of rain each year, and the species depends on the persistence of those wet microhabitats. Unlike cultivated rice, this wild relative propagates both by seed, which can enter dormancy, and vegetatively through underground rhizomes, a growth form that distinguishes it from close relatives in the Oryza officinalis complex.

The new global assessment reveals a species in measurable retreat. Using GeoCAT, the Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool, the assessors calculated an extent of occurrence of 14,603 square kilometers, down from 20,213 square kilometers two decades earlier, a decline of roughly 28 percent. The area of occupancy, computed on a fixed 2-by-2-kilometer grid, fell from 120 to 76 square kilometers, a 37 percent reduction. Recent field surveys conducted between 2020 and 2022 failed to confirm twelve populations previously reported in Puttalam, Kurunagala, Anuradhapura and Hambantota districts, and observers describe ongoing habitat degradation driven by urbanization and grazing across most localities. On that evidence, the species qualifies as Vulnerable under criterion A2c, which captures an observed decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and habitat quality over the assessment window.

The threats catalogued for the wild rice read like a checklist of pressures on Sri Lanka’s dry-zone landscapes. Housing and road construction consume populations in the Northwestern Province, where some plants grow along roadsides and are disturbed by roadside cleaning. Cattle and goats graze many sites, and elephants were observed browsing populations inside or near forests. Three populations in Puttalam district and one in Anuradhapura district sit near cultivated fields, exposing them to herbicides and pesticides and to the further expansion of agricultural land. The coastal population at Kirinda in Hambantota district was devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which reduced it to as few as 20 individuals. Finally, because the species depends on swampy or periodically flooded ground, drought and the drying of swamps during the wet season under higher temperatures and reduced precipitation could erode its remaining habitat.

Conservation infrastructure for the wild rice already exists in fragments. Twenty ex situ accessions are stored in the germplasm bank of the International Rice Research Institute and 23 more at the Plant Genetic Resources Center in Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, while the species occurs within Yala, Luhugala and Wilpattu national parks. The first in situ conservation site for wild rice, at Vanathavilluwa in Puttalam district, was established under the Northwestern Province Environmental Statute No. 12 of 1990. The assessors call for research and monitoring to clarify population trends and for new seed collections to broaden the genetic variability held in storage — a notable point for crop scientists, since wild relatives of rice carry genetic diversity that breeders may one day draw upon for traits such as drought tolerance or disease resistance.

Half a world away in latitude but equally exposed, Saxifraga facchinii is a rare perennial hemicryptophyte found only on calcareous and dolomitic rocks of the Italian Dolomites, at elevations of roughly 2,600 to 3,200 meters. It occurs on several massifs — Catinaccio/Rosengarten, Pale di San Martino, Marmolada, Sella, the Sasso Lungo/Langkofel group, Tofane, Conturines and the Odle — but more than half of its occupied habitat lies in small, isolated patches, unambiguously meeting the IUCN definition of severe fragmentation. The plant belongs to high-alpine to nival communities that include endemic companions such as Draba dolomitica, and its most probable seed dispersal strategy is barichory, meaning seeds simply fall close to the parent, limiting the species’ ability to colonize new ground.

The upgraded Endangered category rests on a combination of restricted range, fragmentation and projected climate-driven habitat loss. The assessors calculated an extent of occurrence of 978 square kilometers with QGIS minimum convex hull and an area of occupancy of 196 square kilometers on the 2-by-2-kilometer grid, applying criterion B1ab(iii,iv)+B2ab(iii,iv) because of continuing projected decline in habitat extent and quality and in the number of subpopulations. Climate modeling projects habitat loss to 2070 of an average 75.52 percent under the rcp 4.5 scenario and 87.59 percent under rcp 8.5, with substantial uncertainty ranges. Field evidence already shows the process in motion: subpopulations recorded near the species’ lower elevational limit of about 2,500 meters on the Schlern/Sciliar massif at the start of the twentieth century are now missing, their former sites converted to arid meadows with Sesleria caerulea as expanding low-alpine communities fill in the rocky habitats the saxifrage requires. Additional pressures include ski-area development at high elevations, trampling by hikers and climbers on trails, and collection by rock-garden enthusiasts.

Unlike the Sri Lankan rice, Saxifraga facchinii enjoys no legal protection at international, national or regional levels, although many of its populations grow within Dolomite natural parks such as Paneveggio–Pale di San Martino, Puez Odle, Sciliar–Catinaccio, Fanes Sennes Braies and Dolomiti d’Ampezzo. The assessors recommend a research and monitoring program to illuminate the species’ reproductive biology and population trend, alongside the design of in situ and ex situ conservation measures for possible population reinforcement and assisted colonization — the deliberate movement of populations to sites where they may survive under a changing climate. A specific monitoring program, they note, would help detect emerging threats such as rising temperatures, expanding high-elevation ski resorts or stochastic events before they alter the species’ status. The assessment grew out of a doctoral thesis funded by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano and took shape at the COST Action 18201 Conserve Plants training school on Red List assessment held in Podgorica in spring 2022, an example of how capacity-building networks feed directly into formal conservation outcomes.

The third assessment shifts the lens from global to regional, examining Helianthemum caput-felis, the cat-head rock rose, in Sardinia. This thermophilous, long-lived half shrub, 35 to 50 centimeters tall, is distributed in disjunct and fragmented populations around the western Mediterranean — the southeastern Iberian Peninsula, the Balearic Islands, Sardinia and northwestern Africa. In Sardinia it is confined to the Sinis Peninsula, where two main populations at Capo Mannu and Su Tingiosu anchor a scatter of smaller groups. The species is entomophilous and mostly self-incompatible, its hermaphrodite flowers lasting only three to four days, and its seeds germinate in autumn at the onset of the rains, with high germination rates after scarification. Globally, the species is categorized as Endangered under criterion E, and it has been listed as Endangered in Europe and Spain, Critically Endangered in Algeria and, until now, in Italy.

The Sardinian picture is unexpectedly brighter. A four-year demographic study across populations in Spain and Sardinia found the global population roughly at equilibrium, and the Sardinian populations show the greatest stability, with a finite growth rate above one, probably because they are structured mainly around large, long-lived individuals. Capo Mannu is in demographic growth and Su Tingiosu stable, apart from losses caused by landslides and collapses of the rocky cliffs. Monitoring spanning more than two decades has detected no continuous decline in extent of occurrence, area of occupancy, habitat quality or mature individuals — both metrics stand at just 16 square kilometers. On that basis the assessors downgraded the regional category to Near Threatened, while adopting the precautionary approach embedded in IUCN guidelines: if the predicted threats materialize, the species’ tiny area of occupancy combined with declining habitat surface would immediately qualify it for Endangered. All Sardinian populations fall within protected areas, including Natura 2000 sites, the Penisola del Sinis – Isola di Mal di Ventre marine protected area and the Montiferru–Sinis regional park, the species is covered by Annex I of the Bern Convention and Annex II of the Habitats Directive, and seeds are banked in European germplasm collections. Successful translocations elsewhere in its range suggest that reintroduction and reinforcement could be widely deployed if local extirpations occur.

Read together, the three assessments demonstrate the machinery of contemporary Red List science at work. Geospatial software converts herbarium records and field waypoints into extent and area of occupancy; fixed grids and criteria A through E standardize how decline, fragmentation and fluctuation are weighed; demographic matrices test whether populations are growing or shrinking; and climate envelopes project where habitat will remain by mid-century. They also show how the same framework can yield opposite trajectories — an upgrade for a climate-squeezed alpine endemic, a downgrade for a Mediterranean shrub whose monitored populations are holding steady — and how categories can change as data improve. For the rhizomatous rice, the Dolomite saxifrage and the Sardinian rock rose alike, the assessments mark not an endpoint but a baseline: the starting point for the monitoring, seed collection and habitat protection that will determine whether the next evaluation records recovery or further decline.

Subject of Research: Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 15

Article Title: Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 15

Article References: Orsenigo, S., Calderisi, G., Cogoni, D., Mondoni, A., Nascimbene, J., Rota, F., Sajeevan, T., Wijayasinghe, M., Wellstein, C., & Fenu, G. (2023). Global and Regional IUCN Red List Assessments: 15. Italian Botanist, 15, 177-191. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.15.107040

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.15.107040

Keywords: Global, Regional, IUCN, List, Assessments, scientific research

The IUCN Red List is the gold standard for extinction risk. Since 1964 it has grown into the most comprehensive global database of species threats, evaluating more than 160,000 species by 2025 against standardised criteria based on population size, distribution range and rate of decline. But the global list has a blind spot that conservationists have long recognised: a species can be classified as of least concern worldwide while sliding toward local extirpation in a particular country or region. A migratory bird that thrives across two continents may have vanished from half of its range. The global picture, however rigorous, simply cannot capture the complicated local realities of decline, fragmentation and loss.

To fill that gap, many nations have produced their own Red Lists, following IUCN categories and criteria or their own governmental decrees of threatened species. These documents are often the backbone of national conservation policy, guiding protected area designation, species recovery programs and environmental impact assessment. Yet until now there has been no comprehensive, openly available index of where these lists exist, what they cover, or how to find them. Earlier attempts, most notably the National Red List project hosted by the Zoological Society of London in collaboration with the IUCN National Red List Working Group, made important strides, but that database covered only 101 sources from 73 countries and has undergone a significant hiatus while its website and infrastructure were restructured to empower national focal points in managing their own data.

The RegRed team took a deliberately broader approach. Rather than relying solely on submissions from official national representatives, they systematically combed through search engines including Google Search, Google Scholar and ResearchGate, worked through national and university libraries, and drew heavily on the IUCN’s own library for official Red Lists. They worked continent by continent and country by country, using adaptable search phrases such as “red list of,” “endangered fauna of” and “list of endangered species of.” When a source could not be assigned to a standard administrative boundary, they created custom regions covering territories like the Arabian Peninsula, the Carpathians or the Dutch Caribbean. Each document was geolocated to the most precise administrative level possible and classified according to its lowest common taxonomic unit.

The result is a dataset of 3,184 records derived from 2,090 sources, with each record representing one source for one taxonomic group. A single national list of reptiles and amphibians thus generates two records, a structure designed to help researchers filtering by group. Every record carries metadata on title, URL, file format, language and publication year, alongside taxonomic classifications normalised against GBIF’s taxonomic backbone. The coverage spans 483 distinct taxa and stretches from 1975 to 2024, with nearly half of the sources published within the last decade alone. The database is freely available through GitHub and Zenodo, and the team plans regular updates as corrections and additions arrive.

The patterns hidden in the metadata tell their own story. Europe dominates the collection with 2,182 records, followed by Asia with 452, reflecting both the intensity of conservation assessment activity in Europe and the fragmentary, group-by-group way its data are published. Germany alone contributed 544 insect group assessments, each covering relatively few species, while the United States tends to publish broader single documents spanning entire faunas. The peaks in publication around 2003, 2010 and 2020 track closely with major international milestones: the establishment of IUCN’s regional Red List guidelines in 2003, the Aichi Biodiversity Targets in 2010, and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework in 2020. Policy, it turns out, leaves visible fingerprints in the bibliographic record.

The taxonomic breakdown reveals a familiar bias in conservation attention. Animalia accounts for 2,190 records, Plantae 898 and Fungi just 105. Within animals, the phylum Arthropoda leads with 978 sources, though the vast majority of those, 854, concern insects, while arachnids received only 47. Among vertebrates, mammals lead with 202 sources, followed by birds at 185, reptiles at 148, amphibians at 133 and fish at 102. The scarcity of fungal records outside Europe is particularly striking, the authors note, reflecting the historical neglect of a kingdom whose ecological importance is immense. A similar caution applies to vague titles like “Fauna” or “Flora,” which may bundle wildly different taxonomic groups together and complicate automated analysis.

The team is candid about the limitations of the collection. Accessibility varies enormously from country to country: some jurisdictions maintain well-organised public databases, while elsewhere lists are scattered across platforms or hosted on defunct websites, which is precisely why the compilation matters. Source quality ranges from peer-reviewed assessments to scanned books with little or no optical character recognition. Not all sources follow the current IUCN Categories and Criteria, version 3.1, which have evolved over time. Links can decay, especially for documents hosted on government servers, and the team has verified URLs only at the time of publication, inviting readers to report dead links by email.

This metadata release is only step one. The second phase of RegRed aims to digitise the actual per-species threat assessments from all compiled sources, beginning with vertebrates, and to build methods for large-scale, accurate data extraction. The final database will be offered through a web interface and as a downloadable dataset under a CC-BY licence, with the team explicitly framing the effort as open, decentralised and collaborative rather than competitive with existing projects like the National Red List initiative or taxon-specific efforts such as the Patterns and Drivers of Regional Plant Extinctions project led by German research institutions. Anyone with knowledge of regional Red Lists the project may have missed, or who spots errors in the data, is invited to contribute.

What makes the RegRed effort resonate far beyond academia is what it says about the state of the world’s conservation knowledge. Scientists estimate that current extinction rates run between 100 and 1,000 times higher than natural background levels, and effective response depends on knowing precisely where species are in trouble. Some of the documents catalogued here, including traditional Red Books complete with photographs, illustrations, maps and locally relevant species accounts, are treasures in their own right, doubling as freely available field guides and handbooks. By dragging thousands of these documents out of obscurity and onto an open, indexed database, RegRed is doing more than organizing metadata. It is assembling a planetary early-warning system, one national Red List at a time, and inviting the world to help finish the job.

Subject of Research: Compilation of a global metadata database of regional and national Red Lists of threatened species

Article Title: Towards a new global database of regional Red Lists (RegRed): metadata

Article References: Kadlec, I., Uličný, A., Keil, P., & Grattarola, F. (2025). Towards a new global database of regional Red Lists (RegRed): metadata. Nature Conservation, 60, 39-47. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.60.158981

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/natureconservation.60.158981

Keywords: Red Lists, IUCN, biodiversity, conservation, RegRed, species extinction, threatened species, metadata database, national Red Lists, open science, GBIF, extinction risk

Spikemosses are not mosses at all. Selaginella belongs to the lycophytes, a group of seedless vascular plants whose ancestors dominated the coal-forming swamps of the Carboniferous period more than 300 million years ago. Today the genus is the largest of its family, Selaginellaceae, encompassing an estimated 600 to 800 species worldwide, with roughly 350 in the Americas and about 300 native to the Neotropics. Despite their ancient pedigree, these plants remain poorly documented in many tropical regions, and Venezuela has long stood out as a gap in the map. The most recent full treatment of South American Selaginella, published in 1981, recognized just 133 species across the continent, including 53 confirmed for Venezuela.

The new paper changes that picture substantially. The ten newly described species are Selaginella cataniapensis, S. cultellifolia, S. guaramacalensis, S. liesneri, S. mawarinumensis, S. monoloba, S. mostaceroi, S. plagiochiloides, S. tricula, and S. turingiana. Two of them, S. cultellifolia and S. monoloba, also occur in neighboring Colombia. In addition, the authors reclassify Selaginella flabellata var. latifrons, a taxon first collected near Colonia Tovar in the 1850s, as a distinct species under the new name S. anemosyra, a decision that vindicates a judgment made decades ago by the botanist Alston, who had privately considered the plant a full species and even drafted an unpublished name for it.

The methodology behind these discoveries is a blend of old-fashioned herbarium work and modern imaging technology. The researchers examined specimens from more than twenty herbaria across the Americas and Europe, supplemented by digitized images available through the PteridoPortal database. Crucially, they deployed scanning electron microscopy to study the ornamentation of megaspores and microspores, the microscopic reproductive structures whose surface patterns, ridges, perforations, papillae, and echinate textures, serve as diagnostic fingerprints separating closely related species. Leaf anatomy received equally close attention: the distribution of papillate idioblasts, the arrangement of stomata, and the structure of hyaline cell bands along leaf margins all provided characters that distinguish, for example, S. cataniapensis from its lookalike S. amazonica.

Each new species comes with a story of place. Selaginella cataniapensis, a fern-like plant with erect stems reaching over 70 centimeters, was collected in the Cataniapo river basin in the Venezuelan Amazon, an area that has already lent its name to an orchid, an Ouratea tree, and a Sloanea. S. guaramacalensis grows in the humid montane forests of Parque Nacional Guaramacal, an outlier of the Cordillera de Mérida in the Venezuelan Andes, and appears to be separated from its closest relative, S. meridensis, by dry inter-Andean valleys that act as ecological barriers to gene flow. S. mawarinumensis, a creeping plant with delicate filiform rhizophores, is known only from the banks of the Río Mawarinuma near the Cerro de la Neblina base camp, where it sometimes climbs the lower trunks of trees.

Perhaps the most charming addition is S. plagiochiloides, a tiny epipetric species so small and flat that its authors liken it to a leafy liverwort of the genus Plagiochila. Its strobili, the spore-bearing cones, frequently revert to vegetative growth at their tips, producing a distinctive V/F/V pattern of alternating fertile and sterile zones. Even more intriguingly, the researchers observed occasional bifid, or two-forked, lateral leaves, a developmental oddity previously documented only in the European species S. helvetica. This may be the first report of such leaf-form lability in a Neotropical Selaginella, hinting that latent developmental potential in lycophytes is more widespread than anyone suspected.

Not every name is new. S. monoloba had been lurking in herbaria for half a century, its specimens labeled as a “Magdalena form” of S. kunzeana, while Alan Smith flagged the type collection as a potentially undescribed species back in 1985. Its peltate median leaves, attached at the center rather than the base, and its single short basiscopic auricle finally earned it formal recognition. Similarly, S. tricula carries an epithet that Smith coined in his unpublished 1985 checklist of Venezuelan pteridophytes; the authors retained it because the name aptly describes the short, stiff hairs along the leaf margins. And S. turingiana bears perhaps the most unexpected dedication of all: it honors Alan M. Turing, the computing pioneer who developed a mathematical model linking plant phyllotaxis to Fibonacci numbers, a topic the authors argue deserves far more attention in Selaginella research.

The paper also cleans house taxonomically. Selaginella anceps, long reported from Venezuela, is formally excluded from the country: specimens previously identified as such turn out to belong to S. altheae in Amazonas or to the new S. turingiana in the Coastal Range. Meanwhile, S. mazaruniensis, once thought confined to Guyana and later found in Brazil, is recorded for the first time from Cerro de la Neblina in Venezuela, though the authors note that conflicting herbarium determinations of the same collections mean further study is needed to resolve the discrepancies.

Alongside the descriptions come sobering conservation assessments, conducted under IUCN criteria using the GeoCAT tool to estimate extent of occurrence and area of occupancy. The results are stark. S. cultellifolia, known from just two collections in Colombia and Venezuela, is assessed as Critically Endangered with an area of occupancy of only 8 square kilometers. S. liesneri and S. plagiochiloides, each known from a single locality, and S. mostaceroi, known only from a deforestation-pressured area near La Fundación in Táchira, all receive Critically Endangered status. S. anemosyra, restricted to Aragua state where historical deforestation has been severe, is listed as Endangered. Even S. turingiana, the most widely distributed of the new species with an extent of occurrence of over 9,000 square kilometers, is assessed as Vulnerable due to ongoing habitat degradation in northern Venezuela.

Why do so many spikemoss species hide in plain sight? Part of the answer lies in their habitats: steep cloud-forest slopes, waterfall-splashed boulders, and remote tepui summits that few collectors ever reach. Part lies in their subtlety, as species separated by megaspore micromorphology or the width of a hyaline leaf margin look nearly identical in the field. And part lies in the sheer pace of habitat loss, which may erase species before they are ever named. With Venezuela’s fern and lycophyte flora now estimated at well over 1,100 species, and the country’s Selaginella count pushed past 100, the new treatment makes clear that the inventory is far from complete. Each unnamed species in a herbarium drawer is a race against deforestation, illegal mining, and land conversion, and this paper is a reminder that taxonomy, often dismissed as dusty cataloguing, is in fact one of conservation’s most urgent instruments.

Subject of Research: Taxonomic description of ten new Selaginella spikemoss species from Venezuela and northern South America with conservation assessments

Article Title: Ten new species of Selaginella ( Lycopodiopsida , Selaginellaceae ) from northern South America, primarily Venezuela, with a new status and combination, and distributional updates

Article References: Valdespino, I. A., López, C. A., & Ceballos, J. I. (2026). Ten new species of Selaginella (Lycopodiopsida, Selaginellaceae) from northern South America, primarily Venezuela, with a new status and combination, and distributional updates. PhytoKeys, 276, 51-138. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.276.191365

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.276.191365

Keywords: Selaginella, lycophytes, Venezuela, new species, taxonomy, PhytoKeys, spikemoss, cloud forests, conservation, IUCN, Neotropics, megaspores

Rocca di Novara, also known as Rocca Salvatesta, rises to 1,340 meters on the southern edge of the Peloritani Mountains, a range that stretches roughly 70 kilometers along the island’s northeastern shoulder. Unlike the neighboring Peloritani peaks, which are built of ancient crystalline and metamorphic rocks such as gneisses and schists, Rocca di Novara is a small carbonate massif, a Mesozoic limestone formation resting on a siliceous basement. Its steep slopes, scree fields and sheer cliffs form a natural fortress against human access, which is precisely why the botanists chose it. The harsh topography has shielded rare plants from most anthropogenic disturbance, but it has also made a complete inventory nearly impossible using traditional walking-and-collecting methods alone.

The study originated in a field activity organized by the Italian Botanical Society as part of an intensive course in the determination of vascular plants, held on May 21, 2022. That initial group excursion, designed as a training exercise, evolved into a multi-season research effort. The team returned in May, June and November 2023 to capture the full seasonal spectrum of the local flora, from spring-blooming geophytes to autumn-drying annuals. Collected specimens were pressed, dried and deposited at the Herbarium of the University of Catania and the Herbarium Mediterraneum Panormitanum in Palermo, with identifications based primarily on the recent standard flora of Italy and nomenclature following the 2024 Italian checklist.

The technological heart of the investigation, however, was aerial. In May and June 2022 the researchers flew a compact DJI Mavic Mini drone along the vertical cliff faces of the summit, letting it hover while taking intermittent high-resolution photographs that could later be examined for diagnostic floral and vegetative characters. This vertical-flight, stop-and-shoot technique has become increasingly popular in cliff ecology because it allows researchers to identify many vascular plants on otherwise unreachable rock walls and to quantify cliff-face diversity without mountaineering equipment. It was exactly this approach that yielded the study’s most dramatic result: the rediscovery of Saxifraga callosa subsp. australis on the summit cliffs, confirming a population that had gone unconfirmed since the nineteenth century.

The numbers from the survey are impressive for such a small massif. The 300 recorded taxa belong to 189 genera and 51 families, with ferns contributing 10 species and flowering plants dominating the rest. Monocots account for 53 taxa, or about 17.75 percent, while eudicots make up the remaining 247. The richest families are the classic Mediterranean lineups: daisies lead with 37 taxa at 12.3 percent of the flora, followed by legumes with 30, mints with 24, grasses with 21, pinks with 18, cabbages with 16, orchids with 14, carrots with 11 and plantains with 10. Trifolium, the clovers, is the most species-rich genus with 14 taxa. The comparatively low grass count, the authors note, reflects the scarcity of grass-favored habitats: much of the mountain is cloaked in bracken communities or sheer subvertical cliffs dominated by other families altogether.

The phytogeographic signal is what elevates the study from a routine checklist to a document of real conservation weight. Thirteen of the recorded taxa are endemic to Italy, and a further 12 are strictly endemic to Sicily, each representing about 4 percent of the flora. Among the Sicilian endemics are Anthyllis albiflora, Centaurea gussonei, Dianthus graminifolius, Odontites bocconei subsp. bocconei, Symphytum gussonei and Trifolium bivonae. Some display striking distribution patterns: while most Sicilian endemics range across the island’s northern mountains, Centaurea gussonei is confined to the northeastern corner, and Anthyllis albiflora and Dianthus graminifolius are centered in the west. The Rocca di Novara population of Dianthus graminifolius, normally a plant of warm lowland grasslands, here clings to mountain cliffs and shows transitional characters toward a related species, prompting calls for further taxonomic study.

Even more remarkable are the disjunct occurrences of orophilous, or mountain-loving, species that in Sicily were otherwise known only from the Madonie massif further west. Aubrieta columnae subsp. sicula, Daphne oleoides subsp. oleoides, Helianthemum oelandicum subsp. incanum and Minuartia recurva subsp. condensata all reappear on the limestone walls of Rocca di Novara, forming an isolated outpost of Madonie-type high-mountain flora. The cool, humid microclimate at the summit evidently sustains conditions that vanished from the surrounding lowlands long ago. Other rarities add to the picture: the finding of Crepis sancta confirms a Sicilian presence that had been considered doubtful for decades, and the parasitic broomrape Phelipanche gussoneana is recorded for the first time in eastern Sicily. Helianthemum oelandicum subsp. incanum, previously known only from western Sicilian massifs, is reported here for the first time from the eastern part of the island.

The life-form spectrum tells its own ecological story. Therophytes, short-lived annuals and biennials that survive unfavorable seasons as seed, make up 39.3 percent of the flora, a signature of shallow soils, intense solar exposure, seasonal drought and frequent fires. Among the perennials, hemicryptophytes lead at 32.7 percent, followed by geophytes at 13 percent and chamaephytes at 10.7 percent. The chamaephyte figure is notably high and tracks directly with the casmophilous vegetation, plants wedged into rock crevices, that colonizes the limestone cliffs of the upper massif. Woody phanerophytes are scarce at just 3.7 percent, reflecting the near-total loss of the original holm oak forest to grazing, fires and browsing; today only scattered nuclei of Quercus ilex with isolated hop-hornbeams persist, and nemoral species such as Stachys sylvatica and Fritillaria messanensis survive in the shade of bracken clumps and cliff bases.

The conservation implications are stark. Of the 300 taxa inventoried, 36, or 12 percent, fall within IUCN risk categories. Aubrieta columnae subsp. sicula, Fritillaria messanensis subsp. messanensis and Linaria multicaulis subsp. multicaulis are classified as Endangered, while Centaurea gussonei and Dianthus graminifolius are Vulnerable and five further species are Near Threatened. Encouragingly, not a single alien species was recorded, consistent with the pattern that non-native plants in Sicily concentrate in disturbed coastal zones rather than remote mountains. Yet the entire area is part of the Natura 2000 network only on paper; the authors highlight a troubling gap between the site’s formal protection as a Special Area of Conservation and the absence of active conservation measures on the ground.

Comparisons with the historical record sharpen the urgency. Nicotra’s 1880 list for the mountain included just 50 species, 13 of which the new survey failed to find. Some absences may reflect misidentifications or temporary sampling gaps among widespread annuals, but the disappearance of orophilous and shade-loving species may point to something more systemic: decades of climate change and human-driven deforestation eroding the ecological niches these plants occupy. One species, Silene calycina, reported by Nicotra on these very cliffs and known elsewhere only from the western Madonie, has never been found again and is probably extinct. The researchers also documented phenological shifts, with blooms arriving early or late as temperatures fluctuate. Against these pressures, the rediscovered saxifrage on the summit walls stands as both a warning and a demonstration: the drone-borne camera has opened a new window onto vertical botanical worlds just in time to show what still can be saved.

Subject of Research: Drone-based floristic survey of the vascular plants and endemic cliff flora of the Rocca di Novara massif in northeastern Sicily

Article Title: Using drone imagery and group field activities for an in-depth investigation of the vascular flora: a case study in the Rocca di Novara Massif (NE Sicily, Italy)

Article References: Porrovecchio, M., Cambria, S., Bacilliere, G., Barone, G., Crisafulli, A., Di Gristina, E., Di Pasquale, C., Di Mauro, M., Domina, G., Luchino, F., Marici, C., Miraglia, G., Tavilla, G., & Sciandrello, S. (2024). Using drone imagery and group field activities for an in-depth investigation of the vascular flora: a case study in the Rocca di Novara Massif (NE Sicily, Italy). Italian Botanist, 18, 13-28. https://doi.org/10.3897/italianbotanist.18.127209

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/italianbotanist.18.127209

Keywords: Rocca di Novara, Sicily, flora, endemic plants, drone survey, Saxifraga callosa, Peloritani Mountains, plant conservation, biodiversity, limestone cliffs, IUCN, Natura 2000

The new species was found at an elevation of roughly 1,614 meters at the edge of alpine forest, growing as a biennial herb that can reach 150 centimeters in height. What immediately caught the surveyors’ attention was the plant’s covering of long-stalked glandular hairs, which clothe the stems, leaves, calyx, corolla, and capsule. At first glance the species superficially resembles V. macrocarpum and V. blattaria, but closer examination revealed a combination of characters not present in any other known Verbascum, prompting its description as new.

Confirming a new species in this genus is no small task. Verbascum comprises more than 360 species distributed mainly across Eurasia, and its taxonomy has been revised repeatedly since Linnaeus first separated the genus into Celsia and Verbascum based on stamen number in his 1753 Species Plantarum. Bentham later divided the group into sections according to anther morphology, and Murbeck subdivided it further using seed characters. Ferguson and Huber-Morath eventually merged Celsia back into Verbascum, a conclusion now strongly supported by molecular phylogenetic studies. Turkey holds the world record for mullein diversity with 254 species, 193 of them endemic, while Kazakhstan hosts nine species and China six, one of which remains incompletely known.

To verify the status of the Gongliu population, the researchers cross-checked their specimens against the Flora of China, Flora Xinjiangensis, Flora of Kazakhstan, Flora of Turkey and the East Aegean Islands, and the Flora of the USSR, as well as the diagnostic key of Huber-Morath. They also compared material held in the Herbarium of Shihezi University and consulted online databases including iPlant, Plants of the World Online, the Plant Photo Bank of China, and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Floral and fruit structures were dissected and examined under a stereomicroscope, and photographs and GPS coordinates were recorded in the field.

The morphological evidence proved decisive. Verbascum gongliuensis differs from its closest relative V. macrocarpum by bracts that are shorter than the flowers rather than longer, a smaller corolla, a denser glandular indumentum, and a capsule that conspicuously exceeds the persistent calyx. Compared with V. ponticum, its corolla measures 18 to 23 millimeters across rather than 26 to 33 millimeters, and its indumentum is exclusively glandular. It is separated from V. bornmuellerianum by the two anterior filaments being glabrous near the apex, whereas in that species the violet filament hairs extend right up to the anthers. From V. zerdust, which typically bears four stamens, the new species is readily distinguished by having five stamens, rarely four.

The detailed description records a biennial herb with unbranched or mid-branched stems 30 to 150 centimeters tall, densely glandular throughout. The basal leaves are ovate, elliptic to lanceolate, with bicrenate margins and undulate teeth, measuring 5 to 35 centimeters long and 3 to 6 centimeters wide on petioles of 3 to 6 centimeters. Cauline leaves are sessile, oblong-ovate to triangular-ovate, and dentate. The inflorescence is a simple or few-branched raceme with solitary flowers, each subtended by densely glandular bracts 0.5 to 1.5 centimeters long. The yellow corolla, 18 to 23 millimeters in diameter, carries purple and white appendages at the base of the upper two lobes, and its lobes are unequal, the upper two slightly smaller than the lower three. Stamens number four or five, with purple woolly filaments of unequal length, and the anthers are laterally compressed, curved, narrowly reniform, and decurrent at the base. The ovoid-globose capsule, 6 to 10 millimeters long, exceeds the calyx and bears a short beak about 1.5 millimeters long. Flowering occurs from June to August and fruiting from July to September, with cylindrical seeds 0.5 to 1 millimeters long marked by longitudinal undulate striations.

Geography and ecology add further weight to the species’ recognition. Verbascum gongliuensis occupies alpine steppe at around 1,600 meters in the central Tianshan Mountains, whereas V. blattaria inhabits lower-elevation riverbanks and marshes. Cultivation observations suggest the new species prefers humid, low-temperature environments, while V. blattaria tolerates high temperatures and strong sunlight. Although V. macrocarpum occupies a similar habitat, its nearest recorded population lies in the southern basin of Lake Alakol in Kazakhstan, roughly 800 kilometers from Kuerdening. The authors argue that this geographic isolation has driven divergence in corolla size, bract length, and stamen dimensions between the two taxa.

The type specimen was collected on 30 July 2024 at Kuerdening, at coordinates 43°08’46″N, 82°51’41″E, and deposited as a holotype and isotype at the Shihezi University herbarium under the collection number Wenbin Xu and Yuhao Luo 4546. The species carries the IPNI name identifier urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:77380708-1, and the paper is accompanied by detailed photographs of the plant, its flowers, leaves, capsules, and seeds, together with a distribution map and the holotype specimen image.

Conservation concerns shadow the discovery. The species is currently known from a single location, with an estimated extent of occurrence of less than 20 square kilometers and a population of fewer than 1,000 mature individuals. Its habitat is significantly threatened by grazing and tourism activities, which are projected to cause a continuing decline in the number of mature individuals. Applying the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, version 3.1, the authors assessed Verbascum gongliuensis as Vulnerable under criteria D1 and D2, underscoring how narrowly restricted alpine endemism can leave even a newly described species exposed to environmental pressures.

The description also required an updated identification key to the Verbascum species of China. The new species keys out alongside V. blattaria among the yellow-flowered, solitary-flowered, glandular-hairy members of the flora, from which it is separated by its longer-stalked glandular hairs and larger capsule of 6 to 10 millimeters. The full diagnostic comparison with V. macrocarpum and V. zerdust published in the paper documents differences across stems, leaves, bracts, pedicels, calyx, corolla, stamens, and capsules, providing a practical reference for future field surveys in the Tianshan range. As alpine grasslands across Central Asia continue to face grazing and tourism pressures, the discovery highlights both the botanical richness of the central Tianshan Mountains and the urgency of documenting its flora before such narrowly distributed species disappear.

Subject of Research: Verbascum gongliuensis ( Scrophulariaceae ), a new species of Yili, Xinjiang, China

Article Title: Verbascum gongliuensis ( Scrophulariaceae ), a new species of Yili, Xinjiang, China

Article References: Luo, Y., & Xu, W. (2026). Verbascum gongliuensis (Scrophulariaceae), a new species of Yili, Xinjiang, China. PhytoKeys, 280, 73-81. https://doi.org/10.3897/phytokeys.280.201229

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/phytokeys.280.201229

Keywords: Verbascum gongliuensis, new species, Xinjiang, Scrophulariaceae, PhytoKeys, taxonomy, IUCN, biodiversity, Verbascum, gongliuensis, species, Yili

Professor Peixoto is best known as a founding architect of coral probiotics, a field that barely existed as a coherent discipline little more than a decade ago and has since grown into one of the most dynamic areas of applied microbial science. Her research group demonstrated that the microbial communities associated with corals, often described as the coral microbiome, could be deliberately manipulated, restored and rehabilitated through the introduction of beneficial microorganisms. This concept, sometimes summarized as microbiome engineering for conservation, transformed the way scientists think about protecting reef ecosystems under the accelerating pressures of ocean warming, acidification and pollution. Rather than viewing microbes solely as agents of coral disease, her work reframed them as therapeutic partners, offering what her team has described as the only sustainable potential medicine capable of protecting and restoring coral reefs at a meaningful scale.

The implications of that reframing have rippled outward across the life sciences. The success of coral probiotics catalyzed broader research programs into probiotics for wildlife more generally, opening investigations into whether beneficial microbes could be deployed to support amphibians threatened by chytrid fungus, bats affected by white-nose syndrome, and countless other species whose health is entangled with their microbial partners. In this sense, Professor Peixoto’s influence extends well beyond reef science. She has helped establish a conceptual framework, microbiome restoration, that treats microbial communities as manageable components of ecosystem health, a perspective that is now informing conservation biology, veterinary science and environmental management on multiple continents.

Professor Peixoto currently serves as a Professor at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, or KAUST, in Saudi Arabia, where her laboratory has become a global hub for marine microbiome research. From this base, her team has moved from laboratory proof-of-concept to field application, a transition that represents one of the most technically demanding steps in translating microbial science into conservation practice. The group is now testing the automated application of probiotics in pilot trials in the Red Sea at a site known as the Coral Probiotics Village. These trials are designed to assess not simply whether individual coral colonies respond to probiotic treatment, but how the entire reef ecosystem responds, an approach the team describes within a One Reef Health framework that integrates coral, microbial and environmental indicators into a single holistic assessment of reef condition.

The automation component of the Red Sea trials deserves particular attention, because it addresses a central criticism of early intervention ecology: that laboratory successes rarely scale to the field. Automated delivery systems, if validated, could allow probiotics to be applied across reef tracts during thermal stress events, when corals are most vulnerable to bleaching and the dysbiosis, or microbial imbalance, that accompanies it. By monitoring the response of the whole reef rather than isolated fragments, the researchers hope to generate the ecological evidence base needed to determine whether probiotic interventions can complement, or in some cases substitute for, other reef restoration strategies such as coral gardening and assisted gene flow. The work sits at the intersection of microbiology, ecology, engineering and climate science, and it exemplifies the kind of applied, solution-oriented research that AMI has long championed.

Professor Peixoto arrives at the AMI presidency with an exceptionally dense record of international scientific leadership. She has recently completed a term as President of the International Society for Microbial Ecology, one of the flagship organizations in the field, and has served as Co-Chair of the Conservation Committee of the International Coral Reef Society. In the latter role, she led the Society’s climate delegations to the United Nations COP conferences, translating reef microbiology into policy language for the international climate negotiations. That experience in science diplomacy is likely to shape her presidency, particularly given her stated ambition to strengthen AMI’s partnerships with other scientific societies and to amplify a united voice for the importance of microbes in global decision-making.

Her connection with AMI itself is deep and reciprocal. In 2023, she was named the winner of the Society’s inaugural Rachel Carson Prize for microbiology, an award established to recognize a scientist who has used microbiology to advance understanding of ocean biodiversity or to develop solutions that conserve and sustainably use marine resources in support of sustainable development. The prize was presented at the prestigious EMI lecture held at BMA House in London on November 16 of that year, an occasion that marked both the launch of a new AMI award tradition and the recognition of a research program whose societal relevance was becoming impossible to ignore. The prize’s namesake, whose 1962 book Silent Spring helped ignite the modern environmental movement, makes the award a fitting symbol for a scientist whose work seeks to apply microbial knowledge to the protection of natural systems.

Professor Peixoto’s collaboration with her predecessor, Professor Jack Gilbert, has also left a lasting institutional mark. Together, the two served as the first co-chairs of the newly formed Species Survival Commission Microbial Conservation Specialist Group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a body created to safeguard and restore microbial diversity and function across Earth’s ecosystems. The group’s founding premise is that microbes constitute the invisible foundation of life and a cornerstone of planetary and human health, yet they remain largely absent from mainstream conservation frameworks. By building a formal IUCN structure dedicated to microbial conservation, Peixoto and Gilbert have begun the slow institutional work of embedding microbiology into biodiversity policy, a project that complements her new role at AMI. Their collaboration extended into public communication as well, with Professor Peixoto becoming the first interviewee in The Microbiologist magazine’s Under the Lens video series, sitting down with Professor Gilbert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography to discuss how coral reef research and the expanded idea of microbiome restoration could change the world.

In her first statements as President, Professor Peixoto emphasized both continuity and ambition. She described taking on the presidency as an honor and a pleasure, and committed to building on the work already underway, strengthening the Society’s close partnerships with other scientific organizations and initiatives, and maintaining a united and increasingly powerful voice for the importance of microbes and microbiology. Crucially, she signaled a shift in emphasis from demonstration to implementation, arguing that the field must move beyond simply showing what microbes can do and become a stronger force for action, helping translate outstanding microbiological research into solutions and tangible benefits for people, society and the planet. She framed that ambition as the very heart of Applied Microbiology International: connecting excellent science with impact, and working together to turn what is possible into what is actually achieved.

AMI Chief Executive Dr Lucy Harper welcomed the new President, noting that she becomes the fifth female President of the Society and praising her global profile, energy and innovative approach, which Harper said would make it easy to push forward the science of applied microbiology as the organization moves into its next strategic period. Harper highlighted Peixoto’s commitment to diversity and her collaborative style as assets for the Society’s strategic ambitions and values as it approaches its centenary year. Under the Society’s governance structure, the President plays a pivotal role in shaping strategic direction, provides leadership to the Board of Trustees and, alongside the Chief Executive, serves as an ambassador representing AMI in external partnerships. AMI also publishes The Microbiologist magazine and, in partnership with Oxford University Press, three internationally acclaimed journals, and it provides funding to encourage research, broaden participation at its events and ensure that diverse voices are represented in efforts to address the sustainable development goals it has chosen to support. For a society with global reach and a two-century-scale institutional memory, the election of a scientist whose career embodies the translation of microbial science into planetary solutions represents a deliberate statement about where applied microbiology is heading next.

Subject of Research: Appointment of coral probiotics researcher Professor Raquel Peixoto as President of Applied Microbiology International

Article Title: Applied Microbiology International announces new president, Professor Raquel Peixoto

Article References: Applied Microbiology International announces new president, Professor Raquel Peixoto. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Raquel Peixoto, Applied Microbiology International, coral probiotics, microbiome restoration, KAUST, coral reefs, Red Sea, microbial conservation, IUCN, International Society for Microbial Ecology, Rachel Carson Prize, Jack Gilbert