Plants are phytochemical hubs containing antioxidants, essential for normal plant functioning and adaptation to environmental cues and delivering beneficial properties for human health. Therefore, knowledge on the antioxidant potential of different plant species and their nutraceutical and pharmaceutical properties is of utmost importance. Exploring this scientific research field provides fundamental clues on (1) plant stress responses and their adaptive evolution to harsh environmental conditions and (2) (new) natural antioxidants with a functional versatility to prevent and treat human pathologies. These natural antioxidants can be valorized via plant-derived foods and products. Cuba contains an enormously rich plant biodiversity harboring a great antioxidant potential. Besides opening new avenues for the implementation of sustainable agroecological practices in crop production, it will also contribute to new strategies to preserve plant biodiversity and simultaneously improve nature management policies in Cuba. This review provides an overview on the beneficial properties of antioxidants for plant protection and human health and is directed to the valorization of these plant antioxidants, emphasizing the need for biodiversity conservation.

In species richness studies, citizen-science surveys where participants make individual decisions regarding sampling strategies provide a cost-effective approach to collect a large amount of data. However, it is unclear to what extent the bias inherent to opportunistically collected samples may invalidate our inferences. Here, we compare spatial predictions of forest ground-floor bryophyte species richness in Limburg (Belgium), based on crowd- and expert-sourced data, where the latter are collected by adhering to a rigorous geographical randomisation and data collection protocol. We develop a log-Gaussian Cox process model to analyse the opportunistic sampling process of the crowd-sourced data and assess its sampling bias. We then fit two geostatistical Poisson models to both data-sets and compare the parameter estimates and species richness predictions. We find that the citizens had a higher propensity for locations that were close to their homes and environmentally more valuable. The estimated effects of ecological predictors and spatial species richness predictions differ strongly between the two geostatistical models. Unknown inconsistencies in the sampling process, such as unreported observer’s effort, and the lack of a hypothesis-driven study protocol can lead to the occurrence of multiple sources of sampling bias, making it difficult, if not impossible, to provide reliable inferences.

The recent spreading of African swine fever (ASF) over the Eurasian continent has been acknowledged as a serious economic threat for the pork industry. Consequently, an extensive body of research focuses on the epidemiology and control of ASF. Nevertheless, little information is available on the combined effect of ASF and ASF-related control measures on wild boar (Sus scrofa) population abundances. This is crucial information given the role of the remaining wild boar that act as an important reservoir of the disease. Given the high potential of camera traps as a non-invasive method for ungulate trend estimation, we assess the effectiveness of ASF control measures using a camera trap network. In this study, we focus on a major ASF outbreak in 2018–2020 in the South of Belgium. This outbreak elicited a strong management response, both in terms of fencing off a large infected zone as well as an intensive culling regime. We apply a Bayesian multi-season site-occupancy model to wild boar detection/non-detection data. Our results show that (1) occupancy rates at the onset of our monitoring period reflect the ASF infection status; (2) ASF-induced mortality and culling efforts jointly lead to decreased occupancy over time; and (3) the estimated mean total extinction rate ranges between 22.44 and 91.35%, depending on the ASF infection status. Together, these results confirm the effectiveness of ASF control measures implemented in Wallonia (Belgium), which has regained its disease-free status in December 2020, as well as the usefulness of a camera trap network to monitor these effects.

Extensive green roofs are said to increase local arthropod diversity in urban environments. Most roofs are dominated by either generalists or xerothermic species, as a result of their isolated locations and shallow substrate layers. We investigated whether biodiverse extensive green roofs (Sedum spp., forbs and grasses) attract more arthropod species than conventional extensive green roofs (only Sedum spp.) and differ in their respective community compositions. Six conventional and six biodiverse green roofs were sampled continuously for one year via pitfall traps. Ants, carabids and spiders were identified to the species level. We found 63 spider species, 47 ground beetle species and 22 ant species during our study. Spider communities were dominated by easily dispersible species of Linyphiidae, ground beetle communities by either eurytopic or xerothermic species, and ant communities by the synanthrope Lasius niger. While ant communities differed significantly between conventional and biodiverse roofs, no effect of roof type was observed for spider or ground beetle communities. We conclude that both types of green roof give similar results in the context of conserving urban arthropod diversity, at least for the taxa we investigated. In order to attract a wider variety of arthropods in urban areas we recommend the installation of green roofs that are specifically designed to increase biodiversity.

Here, the abundance of macro-invertebrates (Arthropoda and Gastropoda) of eight green roofs and their adjacent ground level habitats in the city of Antwerp, Belgium, is compared. All higher-level taxa found were present in both types of habitats without significant differences in their overall abundance between green roofs and ground level habitats. However, we found significant differences in abundances between the two types of habitats, when specific taxa were compared. Beetles (Coleoptera), isopods (Isopoda) and bees (Anthophila) were more abundant at ground level sites compared to green roofs, while for true bugs (Heteroptera) and cicadas (Auchenorrhyncha) the opposite was found. Our results support the idea that extensive green roofs in Belgium can provide a suitable habitat for different invertebrate taxa, but further research is needed to identify the true drivers behind differences in abundance between ground level and adjacent green roofs.