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Article Reference Recognising Type Specimens in a Dispersed Collection. The Macaronesian Land Mollusca Described by R. T. Lowe
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
Article Reference Reconciling biodiversity and carbon stock conservation in an Afrotropical forest landscape
Protecting aboveground carbon stocks in tropical forests is essential for mitigating global climate change and is assumed to simultaneously conserve biodiversity. Although the relationship between tree diversity and carbon stocks is generally positive, the relationship remains unclear for consumers or decomposers. We assessed this relationship for multiple trophic levels across the tree of life (10 organismal groups, 3 kingdoms) in lowland rainforests of the Congo Basin. Comparisons across regrowth and old-growth forests evinced the expected positive relationship for trees, but not for other organismal groups. Moreover, differences in species composition between forests increased with difference in carbon stock. These variable associations across the tree of life contradict the implicit assumption that maximum co-benefits to biodiversity are associated with conservation of forests with the highest carbon storage. Initiatives targeting climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation should include both old-growth and regenerating forests to optimally benefit biodiversity and carbon storage.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2018
Article Reference Reconciling the impact of mobile bottom-contact fishing on marine organic carbon sequestration
Anthropogenic activities that disturb the seafloor inadvertently affect the organic carbon cycle. Mobile bottom-contacting fishing (MBCF) is a widespread fishing technique that involves the dragging of fishing gear across the seafloor and disrupts seafloor sediments and alters carbon storage dynamics. However, the impact of MBCF on carbon sequestration is still not well quantified, with global estimates of MBCF-induced carbon release ranging from less than 17 Mt C yr−¹ to 400 Mt C yr−¹ with limited assessment of associated uncertainties. Addressing these knowledge gaps is essential for informing effective, evidence-based policy. Here, we force a carefully parametrized organic carbon mineralization model with empirical relationships and observational data from the Northwest European continental shelf and use a Monte-Carlo approach to assess the uncertainty associated to our estimate. We find that MBCF on the Northwest European continental shelf could reduce sedimentary carbon storage by 270 kt C yr−¹. However, the estimated uncertainty remains large (25%-75% percentile range = 620 kt C yr−1), mainly due to uncertainties in the spatial variability of organic carbon reactivity. Our findings also show that the divergence of carbon release estimates in the literature is primarily due to differences in how organic carbon reactivity is parameterized, with higher release estimates often reflecting overestimated mineralization rates. Overall, our study demonstrates the need for targeted experimental studies to quantify how sediment disturbance influences organic carbon reactivity, to better constrain the impacts of anthropogenic activities on the marine carbon cycle and support accurate carbon accounting and informed policymaking.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2025
Article Reference Reconstructing Asian faunal introductions to eastern Africa from multi-proxy biomolecular and archaeological datasets
Human-mediated biological exchange has had global social and ecological impacts. In sub- Saharan Africa, several domestic and commensal animals were introduced from Asia in the pre-modern period; however, the timing and nature of these introductions remain contentious. One model supports introduction to the eastern African coast after the mid-first millennium CE, while another posits introduction dating back to 3000 BCE. These distinct scenarios have implications for understanding the emergence of long-distance maritime connectivity, and the ecological and economic impacts of introduced species. Resolution of this longstanding debate requires new efforts, given the lack of well-dated fauna from highprecision excavations, and ambiguous osteomorphological identifications. We analysed faunal remains from 22 eastern African sites spanning a wide geographic and chronological range, and applied biomolecular techniques to confirm identifications of two Asian taxa: domestic chicken (Gallus gallus) and black rat (Rattus rattus). Our approach included ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis aided by BLAST-based bioinformatics, Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) collagen fingerprinting, and direct AMS (accelerator mass spectrometry) radiocarbon dating. Our results support a late, mid-first millennium CE introduction of these species. We discuss the implications of our findings for models of biological exchange, and emphasize the applicability of our approach to tropical areas with poor bone preservation.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Reconstructing science networks from the past: eponyms between malacological authors in the mid-19th century
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference Reconstructing the nonadaptive radiation of an ancient lineage of ground-dwelling stick insects (Phasmatodea: Heteropterygidae)
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Inproceedings Reference audio/x-realaudio Reconstructing the Palaeo-Environment of the Ancient City of Charax Spasinou
From its foundation to its heydays as trading hub and to its final abandonment, the history of Charax Spasinou was intimately connected with the evolution of the river systems of the southernmost part of the Mesopotamian plain and the shoreline of the Persian Gulf. This ongoing research, which is part of the Charax Spasinou Project of the Universities of Konstanz and Manchester supported by the German Research Foundation and the Culture Protection Fund of the British Council, aims to reconstruct the evolution of the landscape and palaeoenvironment around the capital of Mesene, by combining evidence from remote sensing data and geological coring. Here, results from the analysis of satellite imagery and a preliminary field campaign carried out in 2018 will be presented. It will be demonstrated that a combined geological and archaeological survey in the wider hinterland of Charax allows an accurate reconstruction of the ancient watercourses and the landscape of Mesene, in which the capital was the nodal point for nearly a millennium.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Article Reference Record of Basilissopsis for the bathyal region of the South Atlantic (Brazil) based on the description of a new species and the designation of a lectotype for B. rhyssa
Located in Library / RBINS collections by external author(s)
Article Reference Records of the slugs Ariolimax columbianus (Ariolimacidae) and Prophysaon foliolatum (Arionidae) imported into Sweden
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Red Iron-Pigmented Tooth Enamel in a Multituberculate Mammal from the Late Cretaceous Transylvanian “Haţeg Island”
Mammals that inhabit islands are characterized by peculiar morphologies in comparison to their mainland relatives. Here we report the discovery of a partial skull associated with the lower jaws of a Late Cretaceous (~70 Ma) multituberculate mammal from the Carpathian “Haţeg Island” of Transylvania, Romania. The mammal belongs to the Kogaionidae, one of the rare families that survived the Cretaceous—Paleogene mass extinction in Europe. The excellent preservation of this specimen allows for the first time description of the complete dentition of a kogaionid and demonstration that the enigmatic Barbatodon transylvanicus presents a mosaic of primitive and derived characters, and that it is phylogenetically basal among the Cimolodonta. Another peculiarity is the presence of red pigmentation in its tooth enamel. The red coloration is present on the anterior side of the incisors and on the cusps of most of the teeth. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS) analysis reveals that the pigmented enamel contains iron, as in living placentals. Such a red pigmentation is known in living soricine shrews and many families of rodents, where it is thought to increase the resistance of the enamel to the abrasion that occurs during “grinding” mastication. The extended pattern of red pigment distribution in Barbatodon is more similar to that in eulipotyplan insectivores than to that in rodents and suggests a very hard diet and, importantly, demonstrates that its grasping incisors were not ever-growing. As inferred for other endemic Transylvanian vertebrates such as dwarf herbivorous dinosaurs and unusual theropod dinosaurs, insularity was probably the main factor of survival of such a primitive mammalian lineage relative to other mainland contemporaries of the Northern hemisphere.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications