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Présence du frelon asiatique Vespa velutina Lepeletier, 1836 en région de Bruxelles-Capitale, bilan de sa progression en Belgique et sa découverte au Grand-Duché de Luxembourg (Hymenoptera, Vespidae)
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RBINS Staff Publications 2020
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Under pressure: the relationship between cranial shape and burrowing force in caecilians (Gymnophiona)
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Caecilians are elongate, limbless and annulated amphibians that, with the exception of one aquatic family, all have an at least partly fossorial lifestyle. It has been suggested that caecilian evolution resulted in sturdy and compact skulls with fused bones and tight sutures, as an adaptation to their head-first burrowing habits. However, although their cranial osteology is well described, relationships between form and function remain poorly understood. In the present study, we explored the relationship between cranial shape and in vivo burrowing forces. Using micro-computed tomography (µCT) data, we performed 3D geometric morphometrics to explore whether cranial and mandibular shapes reflected patterns that might be associated with maximal push forces. The results highlight important differences in maximal push forces, with the aquatic Typhlonectes producing a lower force for a given size compared with other species. Despite substantial differences in head morphology across species, no relationship between overall skull shape and push force could be detected. Although a strong phylogenetic signal may partly obscure the results, our conclusions confirm previous studies using biomechanical models and suggest that differences in the degree of fossoriality do not appear to be driving the evolution of head shape.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2021
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Geochemistry of nummulites as proxy for Eocene climate change in the Southern North Sea Basin
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
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Mitochondrial phylogeography of a widespread sub-saharan murid rodent Aethomyschrysophilus; the role of geographic barriers and paleoclimate in Zambezian region
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RBINS Staff Publications 2017
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Systematics, taxonomy and faunistics of the Apomecynini of the Oriental and Australian Region (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Lamiinae) part 7
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RBINS collections by external author(s)
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Review of the genus Eburodacrys White, 1853 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae)
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RBINS collections by external author(s)
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Taxonomie and nomenclatorial revision within the Neotropical genera of the subtribe Odontocheilina. W. Horn in a new sense - 19. Odontocheila microptera nom. nov., a new replacement name for O. euryoides W. Horn, 1922, and lectotype designation of O. niti
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RBINS collections by external author(s)
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The European Mesonychid Mammals: Phylogeny, Ecology, Biogeography, and Biochronology
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Here we review the fossil record of European mesonychids, which are known only through the genera Dissacus and Pachyaena from Thanetian and Ypresian localities (from MP6 to MP10 reference-levels). We describe two new species, Dissacus rougierae, sp. nov., and Dissacus raslanloubatieri, sp. nov., respectively from Palette (Ypresian, ≈MP7) and from La Borie (Ypresian, ≈MP8 + 9). We also describe new specimens of D. europaeus from Berru (Thanetian, ≈MP6). The evolution of the geographic distribution of the European mesonychids is characterized by three phases: (1) the mesonychid Dissacus appeared in Europe during the Thanetian (≈ 57–58 Mya), probably due to dispersal from North America; D. europaeus survived the PETM event (≈ 56 Mya) and possibly experienced a dwarfism; (2) the large mesonychid Pachyaena migrated into Europe shortly after the Paleocene-Eocene boundary (≈ 55 Mya), but it was restricted to northwestern Europe, while Dissacus is recorded at this time only in southwestern Europe (Palette); and (3) Pachyaena rapidly disappeared from European environments, while Dissacus subsequently dispersed into northwestern Europe (≈ 54–52 Mya). We performed phylogenetic analyses in order to identify the relationships of the new species among mesonychids. It seems that the mesonychids went through two radiative events: the first during the Paleocene, the second mostly during the early Eocene. The first one corresponds to the diversification of Dissacus, while the latter resulted in the appearance of the most specialized mesonychids, such as Pachyaena and Mesonyx.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2017
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Dating the latest appearance of Neanderthals in Belgium
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Belgium represents a key region for studying the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition (MUPT) in North-West Europe. This area sits at the crossroads between Palaeolithic cultural facies with influences from eastern, western and southern Europe intermingling during the Late Middle Palaeolithic and the MUPT. Until recently, a temporal gap believed to be around 4ka (ca 42-38 ky calBP) existed between the Late Mousterian and the earliest dated Aurignacian settlements in the region [1, 2]. The dates obtained on Neanderthal remains from Spy fell into this gap, making them the latest Neanderthals in the region [3]. Including the dates from Spy, a gap of two millennia remained between the dates on Neanderthals and the beginning of the Aurignacian. Based on this chronological evidence, the transition from Neanderthals to Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) in this region was believed to have been without contact between species. AMH would have settled in an area Neanderthals abandoned long before. As part of the PalaeoChron project, we have redated the Neanderthal specimens from Spy (tooth, maxilla and scapula), Engis 2 (skull and tooth) and Fond-de-Forêt (femur), using the compound specific radiocarbon dating method in place at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. This method is based on the extraction of the amino acid hydroxyproline that occurs in mammalian collagen using preparative liquid chromatography. This method is more efficient than others in eliminating modern carbon contamination such as conservation materials. In this presentation, we report the new radiocarbon dates obtained on the Belgian Neanderthal specimens. These results show how much impact sample preparation can have on the AMS measurement when specimens have been heavily preserved with conservation materials, which is often the case for human remains. These results also now place the Belgian Neanderthal remains from Spy, Engis and Fond-de-Forêt in their proper chronometric context and allow us to refine our understanding of the disappearance of Neanderthals in north-western Europe and integrate this with other evidence for the human occupation of this region during the Palaeolithic.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
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Doubling the number of high-coverage Neandertal genomes
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Over the last few years, the recovery and the analyses of genomes of ancient modern humans, Neandertals, and Denisovans have changed our understanding of the origins, the movements, and the relatedness of archaic and modern human populations. How- ever, in many cases endogenous DNA represents such a small fraction of the DNA extracted from specimens that sequencing of the complete ancient genomes is economically infeasible. Thus, to date, only three Neandertal genomes have been sequenced to high coverage [1-3]. Even though Neandertal genome sequences of low coverage [4] can be used to reconstruct various aspects of Neandertal genetic history, many analyses, for example estimation of population size and levels of inbreeding, rely on the reliable diploid genotypes. Recent studies have shown that certain skeletal elements, such as the inner part of the petrous bone and the ce- mentum layer in teeth [5 and references therein], may preserve DNA better over time. There is also evidence that the preservation of endogenous DNA may vary substantially even within a few millimeters distance in a single specimen [2, 4]. Due to the value and scarcity of ancient hominin remains, it is critical that the smallest possible amount of destructive sampling is involved in the recovery of genetic material. A usual sampling strategy typically involves taking around 50 mg of powder from a single location of a given bone or tooth. We investigated here whether taking multiple smaller samples in a step-wise manner of the Neandertal specimens from the Mezmaiskaya Cave in Russia and the Troisième caverne of Goyet in Belgium may improve the yield of an- cient human DNA. We removed between 8.5 and 27.2 mg of bone powder from a Mezmaiskaya 1 rib fragment, between 2.5 and 35.1 mg from a Mezmaiskaya 2 skull fragment, and between 5.8 and 53.8 mg from the Goyet Q56-1 femur fragment, amounting to between 15 and 38 powder subsets per specimen and an average input of 16.6 mg of powder per extraction. Importantly, to minimize the impact of contamination, we treated each powder aliquot with 0.5\% sodium hypochlorite solution prior to DNA extraction. The DNA extracts from the same specimen varied by several orders of magnitude in their proportion of endogenous DNA (between 0.07\% and 54.7\%), their content of nuclear genomes (between 0.01 and 78-fold coverage), as well as in the levels of present-day human contamination (0.2-50.3\%). There was no significant correlation between the amount of powder used for the extraction and the overall amount of the endogenous DNA or the levels of present-day human DNA contamination. Thus, these results indicate that ancient DNA preservation varies greatly within one specimen and that the removal of multiple, small sub-samples instead of one larger sample, here coupled with a decontamination procedure, can drastically improve the likelihood of isolating large enough amounts of DNA to make whole genome sequencing feasible. This approach allowed us to identify extracts with exceptionally high endogenous DNA content and low levels of present-day human DNA contamination (2\%), enabling us to generate three additional high-coverage Neandertal genomes. The high-quality genome sequences of multiple Neandertals form a unique reference resource for the scientific community and are valuable for analyses that require reliable diploid genotypes and haplotype information. For example, these data open new opportunities to investigate Neandertal population history, to identify genetic variants that arose uniquely on the Neandertal lineage and might have changed through time, and to determine those that may underlie archaic-specific traits or adaptations.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2019
