New exhibition in Sofia showcases how ANERIS is transforming marine biodiversity monitoring

Pensoft Publishers

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Poster of the temporary exhibition “The Marine World Through the Lens of Science: The Hidden Ecosystems of Europe’s Coasts”

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Credit: PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

On September 25, 2026, ANERIS presented at the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia the temporary exhibition ‘The Marine World Through the Lens of Science: The Hidden Ecosystems of Europe's Coasts.'

The exhibition of the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NMNHS), which opened and was aligned with the European Researchers' Night, focuses on challenges in marine life research and the efforts of the project to design, create, and validate innovative biodiversity monitoring tools and infrastructure. 

Across 14 bilingual panels in English and Bulgarian, the exhibition explains why monitoring marine biodiversity remains a major scientific challenge and how ANERIS is mitigating that. Although the ocean supports an extraordinary variety of life, much of it is still poorly understood and may disappear before it can even be documented. Climate change, pollution, and increasing human pressure make the development of faster and more reliable monitoring approaches increasingly urgent.

The exhibition visually and clearly explains the concept of the development within ANERIS Operational Marine Biology (OMB), a new approach to observing marine biodiversity, facilitating systematic, long-term monitoring of ocean and coastal ecosystems and the rapid delivery of biodiversity information for science, policy, and environmental management.

To better grasp the concept of OMB, visitors have the opportunity to learn more about the four case studies, co-designed for the validation of the imaging, participatory and genomic technologies being created and further developed by the consortium.

Sections of the exhibition explore how the project’s imaging technologies, such as underwater cameras in observatories in Ireland and Spain, advanced image analysis, and artificial intelligence, observe marine organisms in real time. The exhibition also presents genomic tools that detect the genetic traces species leave behind in seawater and sediments, enabling researchers to identify marine life that may be difficult to observe directly.

Citizen science is a major aspect of the ANERIS’ efforts and, by extension, another central part of the exhibition. Through the MINKA platform and BioMARathon campaigns, researchers, divers, nature enthusiasts, and local communities can record and share observations of marine and coastal species. These contributions are verified and transformed into valuable scientific information, helping researchers monitor biodiversity across larger areas.

The exhibition invites visitors to look deeper into Europe’s waters and discover how technology, research, and public participation can contribute to a better understanding and protection of marine life.

As part of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, the mission of the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia (NMNHS) incorporates the following areas: fundamental and applied studies, management and preservation of collections, promotion of natural-scientific knowledge through the exposition and popular literature, training of doctoral candidates and young experts, and expert activities.

Pensoft Publishers is a globally recognised academic publishing company that has gained fame for its innovative and advanced tools, processes, and approaches to publishing journals, books, and conference materials. The company's Research and Technical Development department actively participates in diverse research and technology initiatives. Additionally, Pensoft offers services in website design and development, constructing integrated publishing platforms, and facilitating science communication.

The event is organised by the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NMNHS), in partnership with Pensoft Publishers and the scientific project ANERIS (GA 101094924).

Duration: 25 September 2025 - 1 February 2026

Location: National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (NMNHS), Tsar Osvoboditel Blvd. 1, Sofia, Bulgaria

 

The dark side of the energy transition: Renewable megaprojects sacrifice local communities’ rights

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona

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The rapid expansion of renewable energy to tackle the climate crisis is systemically violating the claims and livelihoods of local communities across the planet. An exhaustive international study with the involvement of the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain, reveals that large energy corporations use corporate sustainability discourses to legitimise wind, solar, and hydropower projects that, in practice, exclude communities from just economic and financial returns and ignore their social and environmental impacts.

Focusing on the major Italian group Enel, one of the largest electricity utilities globally and majority owner of the Spanish energy company ENDESA, the research analyses 15 cases of social conflicts around renewable energy projects, including solar, hydro, wind and geothermal power, in the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile, Brazil, India, and Western Sahara. The study, recently published in the scientific journal Ecological Economics, also involves researchers from the Università Ca Foscari of Venice, the Universitat Ramon Llull and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona, and The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London.

Despite following the supposedly novel corporate concept of “Creating Shared Value” and presenting it as a way to benefit both companies and local populations, the company is still being confronted by local communities for infringing their rights. The authors argue that the corporate narrative works as a moral upgrade of corporate social responsibility, as corporations unilaterally define what counts as “value” in the energy transition, leaving out the fundamental values of affected communities, such as cultural ties to land, food sovereignty, health, and autonomy over their natural resources.

The authors also warn that ENEL’s green and social washing is not an isolated case, but a global pattern transferable to the renewable megaproject model worldwide, where climate urgency is used to accelerate energy infrastructure building that reproduces profit-making logics over territorial well-being. Consequently, the results cast doubt on the willingness of large corporations to really meet due diligence and human rights benchmarks.

“The energy transition is urgent, but it cannot be built on the suffering of communities whose values are left out of the equation. Understanding what 'values' are meaningful locally is a precondition for a transition that is truly just and sustainable over time. For example, it is contradictory to provide hydropower to the mining industry and claim you are using green energy, when the affected communities have been cheated, forced to move, and have lost their means of livelihood and community bonds, as happened in Chile,” says Daniela Del Bene, researcher at ICTA-UAB and Ca' Foscari University of Venice.

Social movements, organised communities, journalists, and international NGOs have long exposed violations of agreements and of basic human rights principles. Through a counter-reporting exercise and interviews, the research discusses five dimensions of impacts: environmental, socio-economic, health-related, ontological, and political. Among them, grievances highlight the flooding of protected reserves, loss of biodiversity, and incomplete environmental impact assessments. Added to these are the forced displacement of populations, disruption of traditional economies, and noise-related health issues in wind energy areas. Likewise, communities face growing stress, inadequate economic compensation, lack of transparent information, and the systematic dismissal of spiritual or relational values in non-self-governing territories and conflict areas.

Impacts on flora and fauna appear in every case, often alongside grievances over incomplete or fragmented environmental impact assessments. For instance, at the El Quimbo hydropower dam in Colombia, sources report that more than 8,000 hectares flooded, largely within a protected area, and that over 30,000 people were affected. In Brazil’s Cumaru region, where company wind energy parks are located, residents have denounced noise-related illnesses and even cases of depression, alcoholism, migration, and suicide, effects linked by community members to the loss of land and community ties. A similar situation can be found in the Thar Desert in the Indian state of Rajasthan, where large solar farms are being built; while in Western Sahara, serious issues linked to that territory’s non-self-governing status have also emerged.

“Our cases show that the form of harm changes between dams, wind farms and geothermal or solar parks, but the underlying logic does not: community relationships to the territory are subordinated to the logics of profit-making,” notes Roberto Cantoni from Ramon Llull University.

“The discourse of corporate responsibility changes over time to accommodate pressing concerns around the social sustainability of large-scale development projects. The problematic modus operandi of transnational corporations does not. And the idea of ‘creating shared value’ is an example of this contradiction,” indicates Antonio Bontempi, researcher at ICTA-UAB.

The publication calls on governments and institutions to build energy governance on plural values. To achieve this, the authors propose shifting from consultation only to real co-decision power for affected communities. Likewise, they call for impact assessments that recognise relational and spiritual values, also in relation to non-human species; collectively decided benefit-sharing; and strong support for community-run energy systems.

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Journal

Ecological Economics

DOI

10.1016/j.ecolecon.2026.109268

Method of Research

Case study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Shared value vs plural values. Contesting renewable energy projects of the Enel Group

Article Publication Date

13-Oct-2026

Stream restoration improves biodiversity but not necessarily ecosystem functioning

A UFZ study highlights the limitations of conventional measures in restoring ecosystem functions

Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

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Stream restoration measures along the Mulde River in Germany: Bank reinforcement structures are being removed to restore more natural riverbank conditions.

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Credit: M. Vieweg

Many rivers and streams in Europe have been extensively modified through the construction of barriers, the reinforcement of banks and streambeds, and the straightening and channelling of streams. According to the Federal Environment Agency, fewer than 10% of rivers and streams in Germany have at least good ecological status. Structural modifications and pollutant inputs reduce biodiversity and weaken the natural self-purification capacity and resilience of rivers and streams. Restoration measures are intended to mitigate these impacts and improve the ecological status of water bodies. Typical measures include channel reconfiguration, the removal of barriers, the reconnection of floodplains, the restoration of riparian vegetation, and the addition of large wood to streams. Such measures can improve the diversity and composition of aquatic communities.

An international team of river ecologists from 13 research institutions coordinated by the UFZ analysed 66 scientific studies to assess how ecosystem functions respond to restoration and whether they recover alongside biodiversity. They analysed data from 281 stream or stream sites in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania and identified 27 functional parameters, nine of which had sufficient comparable data for the meta-analysis. These included gross primary production, nutrient uptake, denitrification, and decomposition of organic matter.  These parameters reflect key processes in freshwater ecosystems and indicate how environmental pressures or restoration affect ecosystem functioning. Gross primary production involves the formation of organic biomass by algae and aquatic plants using sunlight and nutrients. Denitrification involves the conversion of nitrate into gaseous nitrogen compounds by microorganisms, including nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.

“Hydromorphological restoration can improve biological structure, but ecosystem functions do not automatically recover as a result. Our findings show that improvements in stream structure or biological recovery do not necessarily indicate that ecosystem functions have recovered”, says Ulrike Haase, lead author and doctoral researcher at TU Dresden.

The researchers also found considerable variation in the effects of restoration measures on ecosystem functions. Of the nine functions studied, denitrification was the only one for which rates were significantly lower in restored than in degraded streams. “However, this does not automatically mean that the function has deteriorated. Lower denitrification rates may also indicate lower nutrient enrichment”, says Dr Mario Brauns, a UFZ river ecologist who coordinated the study and is a co-author. For the remaining functions, no clear differences were found between restored and degraded streams. “This shows that the restoration measures commonly used to date are usually not sufficient on their own to ensure a measurable recovery of the ecosystem functions we studied”, says Brauns. By contrast, biological characteristics such as species diversity, abundance, and biomass generally improved following restoration. “However, we can assess whether an ecosystem function is actually recovering only if we know its status under appropriate reference conditions”, concludes Brauns.

Ecosystem functions have received little attention in assessments of restoration measures despite the explicit call to restore natural river functions in the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. The Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework also identifies the restoration of ecosystem functions as a goal. “Quantifying ecosystem functions such as gross primary production or nutrient uptake often requires considerable effort”, says Brauns. Compared with biodiversity, ecosystem functions still lack widely standardised assessment procedures and suitable reference values.

Such standards are becoming necessary because the EU Nature Restoration Regulation identifies ecosystem functions as an objective of stream and river restoration. Ecosystem functions must therefore be measured directly and assessed against suitable reference conditions to develop functional indicators for evaluating the success of restoration measures. “The main priority is to further develop and standardise functional indicators for practical use. We must incorporate these indicators into future monitoring and assessments of restoration success”, says Brauns. The necessary scientific metrics are already established but must now be linked to suitable reference conditions and translated into approaches that can be integrated into existing monitoring and reporting systems.

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Journal

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.71126

Method of Research

Meta-analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Hydromorphological restoration of streams does not ensure the recovery of ecosystem functioning

Article Publication Date

22-Oct-2026

 

Can we stop antibiotic resistance in ruining promising drugs before they reach patients?

HUN-REN Szegedi Biológiai Kutatóközpont

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The proposed framework outlines four stages of antibiotic development: screening new compounds, assessing resistance risk across five key parameters, classifying candidates into five risk categories, and using these results to guide development decisions. Depending on their resistance profiles, compounds may be prioritised for further development, optimised to reduce resistance risks, or deprioritised before costly clinical trials.

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Credit: Figure created by Zsuzsánna Réthi-Nagy and Szilvia Juhász.

What if we could predict in early development, which antibiotics bacteria are most likely to become resistant to? In a review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, researchers from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged (HUN-REN BRC Szeged) and the Hungarian Centre of Excellence for Molecular Medicine (HCEMM) in Szeged propose a five-step decision-making framework that could help identify resistance risks early, refine promising drug candidates and prevent costly failures.

A new antibiotic may perform exceptionally well in the laboratory, only to fail during clinical trials as bacteria evolve resistance to it.

“Drug candidates are assessed for efficacy and safety early in development, but how readily bacteria can evolve resistance is often evaluated much later, when there is nearly no room to make changes,” explains Petra Szili, a researcher at the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged (HUN-REN BRC Szeged).

But how can we account for evolution?

The review's authors, Csaba Pál, Petra Szili and Szilvia Juhász, propose a five-step decision-making framework. Beyond assessing how readily resistance can emerge, it examines whether resistance persists in the absence of antibiotics, makes pathogens more dangerous, reduces the effectiveness of other drugs or involves resistance genes with the potential to spread. The framework groups antibiotic candidates into five main risk categories, helping developers decide which compounds to prioritise, redesign or pursue for more targeted applications.

Crucially, the aim is not simply to rule out high-risk candidates. By identifying the genetic changes that allow bacteria to escape a drug's effects, researchers could also inform the redesign of the molecule itself. The goal is to develop antibiotics against which resistance is more difficult to evolve.

Many of the necessary tools already exist, from laboratory evolution experiments and genetic analyses to methods for identifying resistance genes. In a 2025 study published in Nature Microbiology, researchers in Szeged investigated 13 recently approved or in-development antibiotics. Potential routes to resistance were identified for almost all of them, but these varied considerably between bacterial species. In other words, studying a single bacterial strain cannot tell us everything about an antibiotic's future.

The importance of identifying these risks early is illustrated by the case of GSK2251052. Despite its initial promise, resistance emerged during phase II clinical trials, prompting the discontinuation of its development for complicated urinary tract and systemic Gram-negative infections in 2012. The compound has since been investigated again against non-tuberculous mycobacteria. Resistance, therefore, does not necessarily spell the end for a molecule, but it may fundamentally change the direction of its development.

There is also a less widely recognised risk: resistance can sometimes make bacteria more dangerous rather than weaker. Certain changes to the bacterial cell surface, including those associated with resistance to colistin and other membrane-targeting agents, can also alter how pathogens interact with the immune system.

“We need to investigate not only whether bacteria survive an antibiotic, but also how resistance may change their ability to damage host tissues. Some resistance mechanisms can make pathogens more harmful to the host,” emphasises Szilvia Juhász, a researcher at HCEMM.

The Szeged researchers are now translating their earlier experimental findings into a framework for drug development. By bringing together laboratory evolution, genetic studies and techniques for investigating the spread of resistance genes, they propose a practical approach to identifying vulnerabilities in drug candidates before they enter costly clinical trials.

“Pharmaceutical companies invest years and substantial resources in developing new antibiotics. If research can reveal a molecule's evolutionary vulnerabilities early on, those findings deserve attention. Acting on them could save time and resources, while improving our chances of delivering treatments that remain effective in the long term,” says Csaba Pál, senior author of the review.

The authors hope that predicting resistance will eventually become as routine a part of antibiotic development as assessing efficacy and safety. The antibiotics of tomorrow must be designed not only to tackle the bacteria we face today, but also to anticipate how those bacteria may evolve.

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Journal

Nature Reviews Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41579-026-01373-0

Article Title

Predicting resistance evolution to guide antibiotic development

Article Publication Date

17-Oct-2026

New review maps routes from captured carbon dioxide to useful chemicals and fuels

Researchers examine how carbon capture can connect with electricity, sunlight and heat to convert CO2, and what still limits industrial deployment

Science China Press

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Overview of CO2 capture and utilization

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Credit: ©Science China Press

Industrial activity has increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, contributing to global warming and highlighting the need for effective mitigation strategies. Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) offers a way to convert CO2 into valuable chemicals and fuels, potentially reducing dependence on fossil resources and greenhouse gas emissions while supporting a circular economy. Recent years have seen growing research interest and rapid advances in CCU materials and processes.

Published online in Science China Chemistry on October 8, 2026, “CO2 capture and utilization” brings together contributions from 15 research groups across China to examine how captured carbon dioxide can be converted into useful chemicals and fuels. The corresponding authors are Tong-Bu Lu, Jin-Ping Li, Zhong-Yi Jiang, Bao-Yu Xia, Bin Zhang, Xiao-Fu Sun, Pei-Qin Liao, Xu-Bing Li, Jian-Dong Pang, Zhuo Jiang, Xing-Chen Jiao, Di-Chang Zhong, Ji-Jie Wang, Wei Wei, Ze-Long Li and Bin Zhao. Drawing on 983 references, the review surveys materials, processes and reaction mechanisms in CCU, alongside barriers to industrial deployment.

The review compares three main capture approaches: liquid absorption, solid adsorption and membrane separation. Liquid absorption has extensive industrial experience, but releasing captured CO2 can require substantial energy, and absorbents can degrade over time. Solid adsorbents and membranes offer alternatives, with challenges in durability, moisture tolerance and separation performance. The authors emphasize that capture materials should be designed around downstream requirements, while conversion systems must accommodate the available CO2 supply. For conversion, the review examines reactions driven by electricity, sunlight and heat. Electrocatalysis can produce carbon monoxide, formate, ethylene and ethanol, with emerging routes to urea and amino acids. Key goals include product selectivity, efficiency and sustained operation. Photocatalysis requires better light absorption and charge utilization, alongside improved stability and reduced reliance on sacrificial reagents consumed during reactions. Heat-driven catalysis provides routes to methanol, higher alcohols, hydrocarbons and cyclic carbonates, as well as synthesis gas through reactions between CO2 and methane. High-temperature catalysts must resist carbon deposits and metal particle growth that reduce activity.

Bridging laboratory research and industrial operation will require durable catalysts, electrodes and membranes, effective reactant transport and lower energy demand. The authors highlight opportunities to integrate capture with conversion, combine catalytic steps and use renewable energy or waste heat. High-throughput screening and machine learning could accelerate materials discovery, while measurements during operation can reveal catalyst changes and reaction pathways. By connecting advances in materials with reactor design and process integration, the review provides a reference for researchers and industry working toward more efficient and reliable CCU technologies.

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Journal

Science China Chemistry

DOI

10.1007/s11426-026-3837-y

Method of Research

Literature review