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Article Reference Endogenous toxins and the coupling of gregariousness to conspicuousness in Argidae and Pergidae sawflies
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Endosymbiont dominated bacterial communities in a dwarf spider
The microbial community of spiders is little known, with previous studies focussing primarily on the medical importance of spiders as vectors of pathogenic bacteria and on the screening of known cytoplasmic endosymbiont bacteria. These screening studies have been performed by means of specific primers that only amplify a selective set of endosymbionts, hampering the detection of unreported species in spiders. In order to have a more complete overview of the bacterial species that can be present in spiders, we applied a combination of a cloning assay, DGGE profiling and high-throughput sequencing on multiple individuals of the dwarf spider Oedothorax gibbosus. This revealed a co-infection of at least three known (Wolbachia, Rickettsia and Cardinium) and the detection of a previously unreported endosymbiont bacterium (Rhabdochlamydia) in spiders. 16S rRNA gene sequences of Rhabdochlamydia matched closely with those of Candidatus R. porcellionis, which is currently only reported as a pathogen from a woodlouse and with Candidatus R. crassificans reported from a cockroach. Remarkably, this bacterium appears to present in very high proportions in one of the two populations only, with all investigated females being infected. We also recovered Acinetobacter in high abundance in one individual. In total, more than 99% of approximately 4.5M high-throughput sequencing reads were restricted to these five bacterial species. In contrast to previously reported screening studies of terrestrial arthropods, our results suggest that the bacterial communities in this spider species are dominated by, or even restricted to endosymbiont bacteria. Given the high prevalence of endosymbiont species in spiders, this bacterial community pattern could be widespread in the Araneae order.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Endosymbiont induced sex-ratio distortion in the dwarf spider Oedothorax retusus.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Enhanced surveillance of monkeypox in Bas-Uélé, Democratic Republic of Congo: the limitations of symptom-based case definitions
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference Entheseal changes and estimation of adult age-at-death
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference Environmental and climatic reconstruction of MIS 3 in northwestern Europe using the small-mammal assemblage from Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium)
Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3, ca. 60–30 ka) is characterized by dynamic alternations of forest expansion with semi-arid area expansion in accordance with the warming and cooling, respectively, of the sea-surface temperatures in Northern Europe. It was in this context of rapid fluctuations that the terrestrial sequence of Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium) in northwestern Europe was formed. The habitat weighting method and the bioclimaticmodel, as well as the Simpson diversity index, are applied to the small-mammal assemblage of CaverneMarie-Jeanne in order to reconstruct the environmental and climatic fluctuations that are reflected in the MIS 3 sequence of the cave. Revision of the small-mammal fossil material deposited in the collections of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels, Belgium) shows that the lower layers (6 to 4) of the cave, pertaining to MIS 3 (ca. 50–40 ka), underwent cold, dry environmental and climatic conditions for these layers. This is indicated by temperatures lower than at present and precipitation slightly higher than at present, together with an environment dominated by openwoodland formations and open dry meadows. Our results are consistent with the available chronological, large-mammal, herpetofaunal and mollusc datasets for this lower part of the sequence. They are also consistentwith regional loess studies in Belgium andwith previouswork performed on small mammals from MIS 3 in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Environmental and climatic inferences for Marine Isotope Stage 2 of southern Belgium (Meuse valley, Namur Province) based on rodent assemblages
The environmental and climatic conditions of the Late Pleistocene of Southern Belgium are here determined for the final part of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) and for MIS 2 on the basis of a study of rodent assemblages. This paper provides a synthesis of several sets of environmental and climatic data from Late Pleistocene sites, all of which are located in southern Belgium. One has previously been published (Caverne Marie-Jeanne), and seven are unpublished (Cavernes de Goyet, Trou des Nutons, Trou du Frontal, Trou de Chaleux, Grotte la Chefalize, Trou du Chˆene, and Trou du Sureau). The habitat weighting and quantified ecology methods are applied to rodent material housed in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels), and previous radiocarbon dates are updated, in order to reconstruct past environments. Among all the sites under analysis, the quantified ecology method shows that Trou de Chaleux corresponds to the coldest temperatures and lowest precipitation. Trou de Chaleux, with a chronology between ca. 15,964–14,014 cal yr B.P., could probably be placed in Greenland Stadial 2 (GS2) or Heinrich Event 1 (HE1). It has a rodent assemblage associated with a predominance of open dry and rocky formations, the most abundant species being the collared lemming and the narrow-headed vole. These data are found to coincide with previous studies carried out on the large-mammal, herpetofaunal, and avifaunal associations of the site, as well as on small-mammal associations from other sites in southern Belgium with similar chronology, such as Grotte Walou. Taken together, this indicates that these latest Pleistocene intervals in southern Belgium were characterized by harsh climatic and environmental conditions. In contrast, the other assemblages under study yielded much more heterogeneous results, frequently inconsistent with an attribution to the Pleistocene. This is likely to be a result of their admixture with Holocene material due to recent intrusions.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Environmental benefits of leaving offshore infrastructure in the ocean
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Environmental correlates of non-marine ostracod (Crustacea: Ostracoda) assemblages of the Eastern Cape (South Africa)
The present study investigates the ecology and distribution of ostracod species and assemblages from 62 inland waterbodies in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa and tests the influence of two major climatic zones (Arid steppe climate BS and Warm temperate humid climate Cf) and two primary catchments (Kowie and Great Fish Rivers), as well as broad gradients of altitude and several local environmental factors. Distance-based linear models were used to test these species-environment relationships and indicated that eight variables (water temperature, pH, conductivity, waterbody size, habitat type, altitude, hydrological-drainage, climate) individually showed significant correlations with the response ostracod dataset of 35 species. However, owing to substantial collinearity, the most parsimonious model identified only two predicting variables (climatic zone and water pH) which best explained variation in ostracod assemblage composition. The assemblages of the two climatic zones differed significantly, with Plesiocypridopsis newtoni and Sarscypridopsis ochracea being most commonly found in the BS climates, while Sarscypridopsis trigonella and Physocypria capensis occurred most frequently in the Cf climates. Finally, tolerance ranges to water pH and electrical conductivity for 21 ostracod species are provided to facilitate application of ostracods in further biodiversity and water-quality assessments, as well as in palaeo-environmental reconstructions.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Environmental drivers of ant dominance in a tropical rainforest canopy at different spatial scales
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2020