Positive human–wildlife coexistence, especially in contexts of rewilding and the reintroduction of large carnivores, partially depends on communication between stakeholders. The media, and in particular local journalism, can play a crucial role in determining people’s knowledge of and attitudes towards wildlife. In this article, we analyse the online coverage of bears produced by the most widely circulated local newspaper in Trentino (Italy), where bears have been reintroduced thanks to a rewilding project funded by the European Union. Employing quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 375 articles, we look into the main features of the media coverage of bears over one year (2024). We find that articles tend to focus on controversial and uncommon events, such as culls and interactions. The most prevalent sources of quotations in the articles are politicians and activists, while experts, local residents, and individuals in the farming sector are less often quoted. The majority of articles are framed through the lens of the socio-political struggle generated by bear presence. Micro-dynamics of the online media coverage include high polarisation, fragmentation of narratives, and the marginalisation of relevant stakeholders (i.e., local communities, experts, European institutions).

Punctuated equilibria (PE) was presented 50 years ago as an alternative to the widespread assumption that most evolution proceeds by gradual phyletic change within lineages. Unfortunately, PE has been widely misunderstood, misrepresented, and unfairly dismissed since this first publication. We argue that much of this misunderstanding centers around a misinterpretation of the meaning of “mode” in evolution, and its significance, properly understood, for how we understand macroevolutionary processes. PE proposed that most morphospecies do not show significant anagenetic trends through their stratigraphic ranges, and that most new morphospecies that are recognized arise via cladogenesis. To the degree that this is true, most exploration of disparity space must be associated with cladogenesis.

We surveyed a sample of the recent paleontological literature to assess the frequency with which new morphospecies appear in the fossil record via anagenesis versus cladogenesis using a persistence of ancestor criterion and found the overwhelmingly dominant mode of species origin to be cladogenesis. This is a valuable but underutilized approach to this problem, which could be exploited with more studies of species-level phylogenies of fossil taxa. Combined with the conclusions of other studies that stasis or nondirectional change is common, this finding of the dominance of cladogenesis affirms that PE is very much alive and of substantial significance for understanding macroevolutionary patterns.

The cycling of carbon in riverine systems is a critical component of global carbon cycle research. However, the sources and performances of riverine carbon in the Qinling Mountains, a pivotal hydrological nexus in China, remain poorly understood. This study investigates the seasonal variations of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentration in the Tianyu River within the Qinling Mountains. By utilizing a combination of carbon isotopic signatures (Δ14C-δ13C) and the stepped-combustion method, we examined the sources of DOC and the contribution ratio of each end-member. Our findings reveal that: (1) the concentrations and dual carbon isotope ratios of DOC in the Tianyu River are influenced by regional climatic factors, exhibiting distinct seasonal patterns; (2) the 14C age of DOC in the Tianyu River is comparatively older than the global average for rivers but younger than that of China’s three major rivers (the Yellow, Yangtze, and Pearl Rivers); and (3) the DOC mainly comes from exogenous sources, with a proportion of about 85.8%–88.4%. Vegetation and riverine sediments are identified as primary contributors. These findings suggest that exemplary ecological preservation exists within the Qinling region while operating within an efficient carbon cycling system. This investigation provides initial insights into how regional climatic conditions influence riverine carbon cycles and enhances our understanding of biogeochemical processes related to carbon.

The site of Stublina, first excavated in 1956 by Milutin Garašanin of the Institute of Archaeology and Radoslav Galović of the National Museum Belgrade is located at the southeast outskirts of the Supska village near the town of Ćurpija, in Central Serbia. Its location on the edge of the flood plain of the Central Balkans’ major waterway, the Velika Morava River, places it on a major corridor extending south to north, linking southern Europe and the Aegean with the Pannonian plains in the north. Based on material finds, the site predominantly belongs to the Late Neolithic and is attributable to the so-called Vinča culture complex; however, sporadic finds of Early Neolithic Starčevo type pottery and Late Medieval burials were also reported. The results of the excavation were published in a single monograph in 1979, containing information on roughly half of the excavated area. However, radiocarbon dating was never performed on the site. The site of Stublina, containing evidence for the life span of the so-called Vinča culture complex in the Velika Morava River basin, one of the most important corridors during the entire Neolithic period of Southeast Europe, is a valuable chronological beacon based on its vast material record of pottery fragments, traditionally used to construct relative chronological sequences in the past. In this paper, we present the results of contextual radiocarbon dating using Bayesian chronological modeling with 28 new AMS 14C radiocarbon dates, selected from the material archive located in the depos of the National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade. The samples were chosen from stratigraphically well-defined contexts published in the 1979 Garašanin and Garašanin volume on Supska. These contexts provide secure chronological order of layers and features, representing the entire life span of the site in the Late Neolithic period. Our results provide strong validation for archival records originating from old archaeological excavations and breathe new life into their potential for contemporary archaeological research, using techniques and methods unavailable at the time of their creation.

Seabirds play an important role as top consumers in the food web and can be used as biomonitors for exposure to pollutants. Erythrocyte nuclear abnormalities (ENAs) represent one of the most important ways to detect genomic damage associated with environmental degradation and pollution. This study investigates the number of ENAs in three populations of two species of Leucocarbo shags. Blood samples from the Antarctic shag (Leucocarbo bransfieldensis) breeding on the Antarctic Peninsula and the South Shetland Islands and the South Georgia shag (Leucocarbo georgianus) breeding on the South Orkney Islands were analysed. The results revealed evidence of genomic damage in all individuals, with a mean number of ENAs of 26.54 and 43.51/10 000 red blood cells for Antarctic and South Georgia shags, respectively. Thus, the shags from the Orkney Islands showed a higher number of erythrocyte abnormalities, whereas no significant differences were observed among shag populations across the Antarctic Peninsula and South Shetland Islands. These results suggest that, in the northern part of the region, shags might be more exposed to pollutants. They also provide the first reference values for cytogenetic damage in this species and establish a critical baseline for future biomonitoring efforts.