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Article Reference The Environment and its Exploitation Along the Lower Scheldt River During the Roman Period (Wichelen, Belgium – Late 1st to 3rd Centuries AD)
The large number of rural Roman settlements known from the Low Countries is generally characterised by a poor preservation of ecological proxies due to the absence of waterlogged contexts. The riverside site of Wijmeers (Wichelen, Belgium), a small rural settlement located in the Lower Scheldt basin, represents a rare exception to this pattern. Due to the presence of a waterlogged sequence with Roman (late 1st–3rd centuries AD) waste layers, located only a few metres from a main building structure, and the covering of the site with alluvial sediments shortly after its abandonment, the preservation condition of charred and uncharred organic materials was exceptional. The combined study of these proxies (pollen, seeds, charcoal, mollusc shells and animal bones) presents unique insights into the subsistence economy of a Roman rural household in the Lower Scheldt valley in general, and especially its exploitation of the valley and river environments. Besides this cultural–economical perspective, the site provides key information for understanding the chronology of fluvial and alluvial processes in the Lower Scheldt Basin for a large part of the Subatlantic period (Iron Age to Early Middle Ages, ca 800 BC–900 AD).
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030: Opportunities and challenges on the path towards biodiversity recovery
The European Union (EU) has committed to an ambitious biodiversity recovery plan in its Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the Green Deal. These policies aim to halt biodiversity loss and move towards sustainable development, focusing on restoring degraded habitats, extending the network of protected areas (PAs), and improving the effectiveness of management, governance, and funding. The achievement of conservation goals must be founded on understanding past successes and failures. Here, we summarise the strengths and weaknesses of past EU biodiversity conservation policies and practices and explore future opportunities and challenges. We focus on four main aspects: i) coordination among and within the EU Member States, ii) integration of biodiversity conservation into socio-economic sectors, iii) adequacy and sufficiency of funds, and iv) governance and stakeholder participation.Whilst past conservation efforts have benefitted from common rules across the EU and funding mechanisms, they have failed at operationalizing coordination within and across the Member States, integrating biodiversity conservation into other sectoral policies, adequately funding and effectively enforcing management, and facilitating stakeholder participation in decision-making. Future biodiversity conservation would benefit from an extended and better-managed network of PAs, additional novel funding opportunities, including the private sector, and enhanced co-governance. However, it will be critical to find sustainable solutions to potential conflicts between conservation goals and other socio-economic objectives and to resolve inconsistencies across sectoral policies.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference The evolutionary history of manatees told by their mitogenomes
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2021
Inbook Reference The faunal remains in Bukova Pusta IV
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference The first record of Early Devonian ammonoids from Belgium and their stratigraphic significance
The first ammonoids from the Lower Emsian (Devonian) of Belgium are described. They belong to the Anetoceratinae, which show the most plesiomorphic characters of all ammonoids. This is the second report of Early Emsian ammonoids within the Rhenish facies of the Rhenish Slate Mountains (Belgium, Germany), in this case from the Belgian part of the Eifel (Burg Reuland). It highlights the possible importance of ammonoids for the correlation of the Emsian in its traditional German sense and the Emsian in the global sense as delimited by the GSSPs. Newly collected, age-significant brachiopods of the genera Arduspirifer and Euryspirifer and other previously reported fossils indicate a middle or late Early Emsian (Singhofen or Vallendar) age (in German sense) for this locality. We extend the range of Ivoites schindewolfi outside of the Hunsrück Basin and further corroborate an age younger than Ulmen for parts of the Hunsrück Slate.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference The first record of the genus Olcinia Stäl, 1877 from Cambodia and Vietnam with the description of two new species (Orthoptera: Tettigoniidae: Pseudophyllinae: Cymatomerini)
Located in Library / RBINS collections by external author(s)
Article Reference The fossil bivalve Angulus benedeni benedeni: a potential seasonally resolved stable isotope-based climate archive to investigate Pliocene temperatures in the southern North Sea basin
Bivalves record seasonal environmental changes in their shells, making them excellent climate archives. However, not every bivalve can be used for this end. The shells have to grow fast enough so that micrometre- to millimetre-sampling can resolve sub-annual changes. Here, we investigate whether the bivalve Angulus benedeni benedeni is suitable as a climate archive. For this, we use ca. 3-million-year-old specimens from the Piacenzian collected from a temporary outcrop in the Port of Antwerp area (Belgium). The subspecies is common in Pliocene North Sea basin deposits, but its lineage dates back to the late Oligocene and has therefore great potential as a high-resolution archive. A detailed assessment of the preservation of the shell material by micro-X-ray fluorescence, X-ray diffraction, and electron backscatter diffraction reveals that it is pristine and not affected by diagenetic processes. Oxygen isotope analysis and microscopy indicate that the species had a longevity of up to a decade or more and, importantly, that it grew fast and large enough so that seasonally resolved records across multiple years were obtainable from it. Clumped isotope analysis revealed a mean annual temperature of 13.5 ± 3.8 ∘C. The subspecies likely experienced slower growth during winter and thus may not have recorded temperatures year-round. This reconstructed mean annual temperature is 3.5 ∘C warmer than the pre-industrial North Sea and in line with proxy and modelling data for this stratigraphic interval, further solidifying A. benedeni benedeni's use as a climate recorder. Our exploratory study thus reveals that Angulus benedeni benedeni fossils are indeed excellent climate archives, holding the potential to provide insight into the seasonality of several major climate events of the past ∼ 25 million years in northwestern Europe.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference The fossil bivalve Angulus benedeni benedeni: a potential seasonally resolved stable isotope-based climate archive to investigate Pliocene temperatures in the southern North Sea basin
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2022
Article Reference The Freshwater Information Platform: a global online network providing data, tools and resources for science and policy support
Freshwaters are among the most complex, dynamic, and diverse ecosystems globally. Despite their small share of the earth’s surface (less than 1%) they are home to over 10% of all known animal species. Biodiversity decrease in general and freshwater biodiversity decline in particular have recently received increasing attention, and various policy instruments are now targeting the conservation, protection and enhancement of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Surveillance programs as well as a variety of research projects have been producing a tremendous amount of freshwater-related information. Though there have been various attempts to build infrastructures for online collection of such data, tools and reports, they often provide only limited access to resources that can readily be extracted for conducting large scale analyses. Here, we present the Freshwater Information Platform, an open system of relevant freshwater biodiversity-related information. We provide a comprehensive overview of the platform’s core components, highlight their values, present options for their use, and discuss future developments. This is complemented by information on the platform’s current management structure, options for contributing data and research results and an outlook for the future.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019
Article Reference The Freshwater Information Platform: An online network supporting freshwater biodiversity research and data publishing
Species distribution data are crucial for understanding biodiversity dynamics and the underlying drivers. For freshwaters, which cover only a small proportion of the world's surface, but host a large variety of species, knowledge on species occurrences is extremely important as they are among the most endangered ecosystems globally. However, a huge body of data gathered by scientists and water managers is currently difficult to access: systematic data publishing practices have not been fully adopted yet and data embedded in scientific papers and research project websites are often challenging to extract. At the same time, data and knowledge generated through publically-funded research or monitoring programmes are considered a common good. The Freshwater Information Platform (FIP) aims at pooling freshwater related research information from multiple projects and initiatives to make it easily accessible for scientists, water managers, conservationists and the interested public. The FIP consists of several major components, three of which form its “data publication unit”: The Freshwater Metadatabase (1) is an online tool where data characterising and documenting actual datasets can be entered in a simple way. With one more mouseclick these metadata can then be published as open access articles in the connected Freshwater Metadata Journal. The second part of the unit is the Freshwater Biodiversity Data Portal (2), where we aim to mobilise and publish the connected freshwater biodiversity data (occurrence records) through GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). The use of collected datasets for large-scale analyses and models is demonstrated in the Global Freshwater Biodiversity Atlas (3) that publishes interactive online maps featuring research results on freshwater biodiversity, threats and conservation priorities. Here, we focus on introducing these components as tools to streamline open access freshwater data publication, arguing it will improve the capacity to protect and manage freshwater biodiversity in the face of global change. We further present linkages to and cooperations with other key initiatives in the field, namely the "Alliance for Freshwater Life" as well as "FreshwaterBON".
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2019