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System-to-system interface between the EMSA CleanSeaNet service and OSERIT: the potential synergies between remote sensing and modelling in case of marine pollution
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The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) develop and operate together a system-to-system interface between the EMSA’s CleanSeaNet service and OSERIT, the Belgian Oil Spill Evaluation and Response Integrated Tool. This interface is meant to provide CleanSeaNet users with a support tool for early and automatic oil drift and fate simulation results of any satellite-detected oil spills reported by the CleanSeaNet service in the North Sea and the English Channel. In view of the automatic forecast and backtrack simulations results, CleanSeaNet users have the possibility to further refine this early risk assessment either by activating their own national decision support system or by requesting new, advanced simulations through the CleanSeaNet GIS viewer. This interface is currently passing the final acceptance tests. However, the system has already been used by RBINS for the oil pollution event subsequent to the Flinterstar sinking at 8km off the port of Zeebruges on the 6th of October 2015. This event perfectly illustrates the potential synergies of remote sensing and modelling in case of marine pollution and their integration in risk assessments that must be performed for any significant pollution of the marine system.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2016
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Systematic Design of a Natural Sciences Collections Digitisation Dashboard
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This paper describes the design and build of a pilot Natural Sciences Collections Digitisation Dashboard (CDD). The CDD will become a key service for the Distributed System of Scientific Collections Research Infrastructure (DiSSCo) and aims to improve the discoverability of natural science collections (NSCs) held in European institutions, both digitised and undigitised. Furthermore, it will serve as a dynamic visual assessment tool for strategic decision-making, including the prioritisation of digitisation. The CDD pilot includes high-level information from nine European NSCs, covering the number of objects, taxonomic scope, storage type, chronostratigraphy (Earth Science Collections), geographical region and level of detail in digitisation. This information is structured through a standardised Collection Classification Scheme, which uses high-level categorisation to describe physical natural science collections.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024 OA
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Systematics and biogeography of the Western Ghats-Sri Lankan land-snail genus Corilla
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RBINS Staff Publications 2023 OA
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T2.3-2.6 A Competency Based Curriculum for Natural History Collections Management
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Taphonomy of marine vertebrates of the Pisco Formation (Miocene, Peru): Insights into the origin of an outstanding Fossil-Lagerstätte
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Taphonomy of the Pisco Konzentrat- and Konservat-Lagerstätte (Miocene, Peru).
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Among the most outstanding Cenozoic marine Fossil-Lagerstätten worldwide, the Peruvian Pisco Formation is renowned for its exceptional preservation and abundance of fossil vertebrates, especially cetaceans. We present an updated overview and interpretation of taphonomic data gathered during fifteen field campaigns (2006-2019) on 890 fossil marine vertebrates from the Miocene strata of the Pisco Formation exposed in the Ica Desert. In order to assess the factors that led to the formation of such an exceptional Konzentrat- and Konservat-Lagerstätte, we made observations that range from the taxonomic distribution, articulation, completeness, disposition and orientation of skeletons, to the presence of bite marks, associations with shark teeth and macro-invertebrates, bone and soft tissue (i.e., baleen) preservation, and the formation of attendant carbonate concretions and sedimentary structures. We propose that the exceptional preservation and abundance of the Pisco Formation specimens cannot be ascribed to a single cause, but rather to the interplay of favorable palaeoenvironmental factors and suitable timing of mineralizing processes, such as: i) low concentration of dissolved oxygen at the seafloor; ii) the early onset of mineralization processes; iii) rapid burial of the carcasses; and iv) original biological richness in the southeastern Pacific. Our observations provide a comprehensive overview of the taphonomic characteristics of one of the most significant fossiliferous deposits of South America and lead to the elaboration of a complex scenario for the preservation of its marine vertebrates that might serve as a reference for explaining the formation of other marine vertebrate Fossil-Lagerstätten worldwide.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Tarsal diversity in the earliest Eocene mammal fauna of Dormaal, Belgium
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Mammal teeth bring important information regarding phylogeny and diet. However, postcranial elements, although poorly studied for small Paleogene mammals, can provide other significant data. The purpose of this study is to associate tarsal bones with dental specimens for a systematic identification. We thus chose the Belgian locality of Dormaal (Tienen Formation, Belgium) that has yielded the earliest Eocene mammals of Europe. This particularly rich fauna, dated between 55.5 and 55.8 Ma, occurred during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a key period in the mammal evolution. It is composed by archaic mammals (“condylarths”, arctocyonids, plesiadapiforms, “insectivorans”…) and also by earliest modern taxa (primates, rodents, carnivoraforms, artiodactyls …), representing about 14,000 dental specimens. 488 tarsal bones are studied according to three methods: morphology, relative abundance and relative size. 12 morphotypes of astragali and 18 of calcanei are discriminated and most of them are identified at the level of species (e.g. the marsupial Peratherium constans), genus or family (e.g. ischyromyid rodents). New perspectives in phylogeny and paleoecology are proposed for further studies implying tarsal bones.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Tarsiers, omomyids, and new postcranial elements of Teilhardina belgica
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The phyletic link of living tarsiers to fossil primates has been a difficult bridge to cross. Although Tarsiidae has been linked to fossil tarsiiforms such as omomyids and microchoerids, as well as to anthropoids, no consensus of opinion has been reached. Here we add several new postcranial elements for one of the most primitive of all tarsiiforms, Teilhardina belgica from Dormaal, Belgium. We compare this new material to that of living and fossil tarsiers as well as to other Eocene fossil primates. Besides the previously known tarsals for Teilhardina, we have been able to add a distal humerus, a proximal ulna, a second metacarpal, a proximal and a distal femur, tibiae, additional tarsals, first metatarsals, and several proximal and middle phalanges. Although most of these postcranial elements compare best with other omomyids, and therefore do not resolve the phyletic relationship of omomyids relative to tarsiers, the fingers and toes of Teilhardina are quite elongated, a similarity to living tarsiers. Middle phalangeal lengths of the diminuitive Teilhardina are comparable in length to much larger species of Tarsius suggesting relatively even longer digits. The digit features of Teilhardina and Tarsius are unusual for primates in general and may in fact represent an ancestral state although hands and feet of other fossil tarsiiforms are needed to test this hypothesis.
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Taxocoenoses of amphipod crustaceans
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RBINS Staff Publications
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Taxonomic revision of Strandesia s.s. (Crustacea, Ostracoda) from four Brazilian floodplains, with the description of three new species
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
