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Reconciling biodiversity and carbon stock conservation in an Afrotropical forest landscape
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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.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2018
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Prospections sur la « villa gallo-romaine du Sart », au lieu-dit La Hamaide, à Hautrage (B).
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Hautrage, une commune belge appartenant à l’entité de Saint-Ghislain, se situe dans la partie occidentale de la province du Hainaut. Plusieurs découvertes archéologiques, la plupart anciennes et souvent mal documentées, sont mentionnées sur son territoire1 . 1. Historique des recherches, le site (J. DUFRASNES) La première mention de ce site archéologique apparaît dans HAUBOUDIN 1898, p. 80. L’auteur, un archéologue amateur très actif habitant Stambruges2 , note alors : Villa du Sart.- Un chemin, qui porte encore le nom de chemin d’El Ville3 , indique la Villa du Sart qui est proche. Le cimetière était la nécropole de cette villa4 . Des notes manuscrites datées de janvier 19415 et un inventaire réalisé à l’occasion de l’entrée d’une partie de la collection d’Edmond Haubourdin aux Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire de Bruxelles mentionnent du matériel susceptible de provenir de la villa de la Hamaide à Hautrage, c’est-à-dire de la « villa du Sart » (fig. 1). Cependant, aucun des écrits laissés par cet archéologue ne relate qu’il obtint du matériel archéologique de ce site par acquisition, par des fouilles ou des prospections. Edmond Haubourdin ajoute : « Diverticulum.- Le chemin qui traverse le chemin de fer à la station de la Hamaide porte, au cadastre d’Hautrage, le nom de chaussée romaine. Cette chaussée [dont l’actuelle rue des Bats, à 300 mètres à l’est du site, serait un tronçon selon l’auteur ndlr] passait près de la villa et se dirigeait vers Bavay, probablement vers Chièvres, par Villerot, Sirault et Neufmaison, où elle se confondait avec le diverticulum qui venait de Condé par Stambruges. La grande largeur de cette voie de communication accuse son origine romaine »6
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RBINS Staff Publications 2022
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Vertebrate Palaeoecology of the Pisco Formation (Miocene, Peru): Glimpses into the Ancient Humboldt Current Ecosystem
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Path and site effects deduced from merged transfrontier internet macroseismic data of two recent M4 earthquakes in NW Europe using a grid cell approach.
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The online collection of earthquake reports in Europe is strongly fragmented across numerous seismological agencies. This paper demonstrates how collecting and merging online institutional macroseismic data strongly improves the density of observations and the quality of intensity shaking maps. Instead of using ZIP code Community Internet Intensity Maps, we geocode individual response addresses for location improvement, assign intensities to grouped answers within 100 km2 grid cells, and generate intensity attenuation relations from the grid cell intensities. Grid cell intensity maps are less subjective and illustrate a more homogeneous intensity distribution than communal ZIP code intensity maps. Using grid cells for ground motion analysis offers an advanced method for exchanging transfrontier equal-area intensity data without sharing any personal information. The applicability of the method is demonstrated on the felt responses of two clearly felt earthquakes: the 8 September 2011 ML 4.3 (Mw 3.7) Goch (Germany) and the 22 May 2015 ML 4.2 (Mw 3.7) Ramsgate (UK) earthquakes. Both events resulted in a non-circular distribution of intensities which is not explained by geometrical amplitude attenuation alone but illustrates an important low-pass filtering due to the sedimentary cover above the Anglo-Brabant Massif and in the Lower Rhine Graben. Our study illustrates the effect of increasing bedrock depth on intensity attenuation and the importance of the WNW–ESE Caledonian structural axis of the Anglo-Brabant Massif for seismic wave propagation. Seismic waves are less attenuated – high Q – along the strike of a tectonic structure but are more strongly attenuated – low Q – perpendicular to this structure, particularly when they cross rheologically different seismotectonic units separated by crustal-rooted faults.
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No RBINS Staff publications
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Visualizing Cross-Sectional Data in a Real-World Context
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If you could fly around your research results in three dimensions, wouldn’t you like to do it? Combining the capabilities of an open-source drawing tool with Google Earth maps allows researchers/geologists to visualize real-world cross-sectional data in three dimensions. Any spatial model displaying research results can be exported to a vertical figure to enable the results to be visualized spatially.
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No RBINS Staff publications
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Bistability in the redox chemistry of sediments and oceans
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For most of Earth’s history, the ocean’s interior was pervasively anoxic and showed occasional shifts in ocean redox chemistry between iron-buffered and sulfide-buffered states. These redox transitions are most often explained by large changes in external inputs, such as a strongly altered delivery of iron and sulfate to the ocean, or major shifts in marine productivity. Here, we propose that redox shifts can also arise from small perturbations that are amplified by nonlinear positive feedbacks within the internal iron and sulfur cycling of the ocean. Combining observational evidence with biogeochemical modeling, we show that both sedimentary and aquatic systems display intrinsic iron–sulfur bistability, which is tightly linked to the formation of reduced iron–sulfide minerals. The possibility of tipping points in the redox state of sediments and oceans, which allow large and nonreversible geochemical shifts to arise from relatively small changes in organic carbon input, has important implications for the interpretation of the geological rock record and the causes and consequences of major evolutionary transitions in the history of Earth’s biosphere
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Cryptophyllium, the hidden leaf insects – descriptions of a new leaf insect genus and thirteen species from the former celebicum species group (Phasmatodea, Phylliidae)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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La teneur en CO2 de l’air des grottes de Wallonie augmente plus vite que celle de l’atmosphère libre-Variations saisonnières, évolution semi-séculaire et flux de CO2
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Modélisation 3D par imagerie lidar et analyse structurale de la Salle du Dôme des Grottes de Han-sur-Lesse (Belgique, Ardenne)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Digital restoration of the snout of Khirtharia inflata (Raoellidae, Artiodactyla) from the middle Eocene of northwest Himalaya
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In this work, we digitally restore the snout of the raoellid Khirtharia inflata from the Kalakot area (Rajouri District, Jammu & Kashmir, India). Raoellids are small, semiaquatic ungulates closely related to cetaceans. The specimen is fairly complete and preserves left and right maxillae, left premaxilla, and part of the anterior and jugal dentition. The digital restoration of this quite complete but deformed specimen of Khirtharia inflata is a welcome addition to the data available for raoellids and will be used to further the understanding of the origins of cetaceans.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024 OA