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Article Reference Life on every stone: Characterizing benthic communities from scour protection layers of offshore wind farms in the southern North Sea
The scour protection layer (SPL) is a layer of large stones placed around man-made structures in the marine environment, preventing sediment scouring while also providing new hard substrate and potentially increasing the structural complexity of the original environment. This fosters development of diverse benthic communities, supporting high abundance of organisms. Future SPLs are therefore a potential tool for the ecological enhancement of degrading marine habitats following the principles of nature-inclusive design. Yet, factors that shape the benthic communities on SPLs are poorly understood. Here, we analysed existing data from SPLs from offshore wind farms and a gas platform in the southern North Sea to determine how SPL characteristics affect the biofouling community structure. We combined this analysis with an in-situ experiment testing for the effects of habitat complexity on SPL communities. Our results demonstrate that abundant and diverse communities are present on all SPLs. On a regional scale, communities are mainly affected by depth and location. Increasing habitat complexity has significant and positive effects on species richness yet was non-significant for biomass and abundance of the biofouling community. If applied thoughtfully, nature-inclusive design of the SPL habitat, including manipulation of the physical complexity of the structure, can effectively promote biodiversity.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2024
Article Reference Life strategy traits of the liana Sericostachys scandens spreading in the montane forests in the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (DR Congo).
Sericostachys scandens is a monocarpic and heliophilous liana, native in tropical African forests. In the montane forests of the Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP) (East of DR Congo), it has been expanding very strongly for a decade, and is currently considered as having negative impacts on biodiversity conservation. In this paper, we test if S. scandens differs from three co-occurring, native, non spreading lianas (Gouania longispicata, Tacazzea apiculata and Adenia bequaertii) for functional traits which might influence plant expansion. For leaf traits (SLA, dry matter content, nitrogen concentration), S. scandens did not show extreme values compared to those of the three other lianas. In contrast, S. scandens had much higher biomass allocation to sexual reproduction. It also differs from the three other lianas for its reproductive strategy that combines both vegetative propagation and sexual reproduction, and propagule dispersal by wind. Moreover, S. scandens has larger leaves and a greater number of lateral branches per unit stem length. It is argued that the particular combination of functional traits exhibited by S. scandens may in part explain its propensity to behave as an opportunistic weed in the disturbed areas in the montane forests of Kahuzi-Biega.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Lifestyle and Ice: The Relationship between Ecological Specialization and Response to Pleistocene Climate Change
Major climatic changes in the Pleistocene had significant effects on marine organisms and the environments in which they lived. The presence of divergent patterns of demographic history even among phylogenetically closely-related species sharing climatic changes raises questions as to the respective influence of species-specific traits on population struc- ture. In this work we tested whether the lifestyle of Antarctic notothenioid benthic and pelagic fish species from the Southern Ocean influenced the concerted population response to Pleistocene climatic fluctuations. This was done by a comparative analysis of sequence variation at the cyt b and S7 loci in nine newly sequenced and four re-analysed species. We found that all species underwent more or less intensive changes in population size but we also found consistent differences between demographic histories of pelagic and benthic species. Contemporary pelagic populations are significantly more genetically diverse and bear traces of older demographic expansions than less diverse benthic species that show evidence of more recent population expansions. Our findings suggest that the life- styles of different species have strong influences on their responses to the same environ- mental events. Our data, in conjunction with previous studies showing a constant diversification tempo of these species during the Pleistocene, support the hypothesis that Pleistocene glaciations had a smaller effect on pelagic species than on benthic species whose survival may have relied upon ephemeral refugia in shallow shelf waters. These find- ings suggest that the interaction between lifestyle and environmental changes should be considered in genetic analyses.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Light Trapping as a Valuable Rapid Assessment Method for Ground Beetles (Carabidae) in a Bulgarian Wetland
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2016
Article Reference Like phoenix from the ashes: How modern baleen whales arose from a fossil “dark age”
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference Lilingostrobus chaloneri gen. et sp. nov., a Late Devonian woody lycopsid from Hunan, China
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Limitations for informed decision making and better management of the transboundary Lake Albert fisheries resources
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
Article Reference Limitations of Predicting Substrate Classes on a Sedimentary Complex but Morphologically Simple Seabed
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2020
Article Reference Limited historical admixture between European wildcats and domestic cats
Summary Domestic cats were derived from the Near Eastern wildcat (Felis lybica), after which they dispersed with people into Europe. As they did so, it is possible that they interbred with the indigenous population of European wildcats (Felis silvestris). Gene flow between incoming domestic animals and closely related indigenous wild species has been previously demonstrated in other taxa, including pigs, sheep, goats, bees, chickens, and cattle. In the case of cats, a lack of nuclear, genome-wide data, particularly from Near Eastern wildcats, has made it difficult to either detect or quantify this possibility. To address these issues, we generated 75 ancient mitochondrial genomes, 14 ancient nuclear genomes, and 31 modern nuclear genomes from European and Near Eastern wildcats. Our results demonstrate that despite cohabitating for at least 2,000 years on the European mainland and in Britain, most modern domestic cats possessed less than 10% of their ancestry from European wildcats, and ancient European wildcats possessed little to no ancestry from domestic cats. The antiquity and strength of this reproductive isolation between introduced domestic cats and local wildcats was likely the result of behavioral and ecological differences. Intriguingly, this long-lasting reproductive isolation is currently being eroded in parts of the species’ distribution as a result of anthropogenic activities.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Limited possibilities for prezygotic barriers in the reproductive behaviour of sympatric Ophthalmotilapia species (Teleostei, Cichlidae)
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018