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Genomic history of early dogs in Europe
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The earliest morphologically identifiable dogs are from Europe and date to at least 14,000 years ago1–5, although early remains are also found in other regions. The origin of early dogs in Europe, and their relationships to other dogs, has remained elusive in the absence of genome-wide data. Similarly, although dogs were the only domestic animal to predate agriculture, little is known about how the arrival of Neolithic farmers from Southwest Asia affected the dogs living with European Mesolithic hunter-gatherers. Here we analysed 216 canid remains, including 181 from Palaeolithic and Mesolithic Europe. We developed a genome-wide capture approach that enriched endogenous DNA by 10–100-fold and could distinguish dog from wolf ancestry for 141 of 216 remains. The oldest dog data that we recovered are from a 14,200-year-old dog from the Kesslerloch site in Switzerland, and we find that it shares ancestry with later worldwide dogs—inconsistent with the hypothesis that European Upper Palaeolithic dogs derived wholly from a separate domestication process. The Kesslerloch dog already displays more affinity to Mesolithic, Neolithic and present-day European dogs than to Asian dogs, demonstrating that dog genetic diversification had started well before 14,200 years ago. We find a Neolithic influx of Southwest Asian ancestry into Europe, but this seems to have been of smaller magnitude than in humans, suggesting that Mesolithic dogs contributed substantially to Neolithic, and, ultimately, probably also modern, European dogs.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Developing Essential Biodiversity Variables for the Southern Ocean: From data gaps to valuable insights
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The Southern Ocean is central to global heat and carbon cycling, connecting all the major ocean basins and regulating Earth’s climate system, and hence providing ecosystem services of global significance. However, its ecosystems are increasingly vulnerable to climate change and localized human-induced pressures, such as (biological) resource extraction, pollution, ship traffic, and tourism. Effective conservation and management require systematic and reliable monitoring frameworks. The Essential Variables concept offers a robust approach to integrate fragmented data, to standardize data collection, and to generate policy-relevant data products enabling informed responses to rapid environmental change. This paper synthesizes the key outcomes of a workshop held in Hobart, Australia, alongside the Southern Ocean Observing System Symposium, in 2023. To advance the adoption, development, and operationalization of Essential Variables tailored to the Southern Ocean, researchers with diverse expertise came together to assess current data gaps in ocean observations and to establish monitoring priorities for marine ecosystems. The workshop provided a dedicated forum to identify key Southern Ocean-specific candidate variables, address methodological challenges, and design pathways for developing a systematic, open, and adaptable framework suited to the region’s unique ecological and environmental conditions. In this paper, we propose Essential Biodiversity Variables that are tailored to the Southern Ocean and are intended to monitor changes in sea ice, planktonic, benthic, and top predator systems. The adoption of Essential Biodiversity Variables specific to the Southern Ocean can enhance our capacity to track biodiversity trends, assess ecosystem health, and inform policy by transforming fragmented data into a cohesive, policy-relevant framework. However, the success of these efforts is only possible by securing sustained funding and enhancing interoperability and collaborations across research groups.This paper as well as the Hobart 2023 workshop are activities endorsed by the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026 OA
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SOOSmap: Your gateway to Antarctic data discovery
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The Southern Ocean is central to global ocean mixing and climate regulation via its disproportionate uptake of human-induced heat and carbon dioxide, yet the underlying processes are still poorly understood. Coordinated and sustained effort in observation and modelling of Southern Ocean processes in the past, present and future is therefore critical for understanding and mitigating the changes underway. Free and equitable access to Southern Ocean data is a fundamental prerequisite to meeting this objective. Here, we present a tool for discovery of, and access to, existing Southern Ocean data—SOOSmap, Version 2 (soosmap.aq). SOOSmap is a gateway to physical, biogeochemical and biological open-access data, free for anyone to use, from ocean science experts to classroom students. SOOSmap was developed in a collaboration of the Southern Ocean Observing System and the European Marine Observations and Data Network Physics project, with the aim to provide an easy to use one-stop-shop for Southern Ocean data held in repositories around the world. In this article, we illustrate the different methods of data access within SOOSmap, describe SOOSmap in the context of other polar data resources and initiatives, demonstrate how SOOSmap can be put into practice by a variety of stakeholders, and instruct users on how they can get involved in the SOOS community and contribute new data to SOOSmap, which is fundamental for this tool to continue to be useful for informing policy and decision-making about changes occurring in the Southern Ocean.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2025
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Scaling up ocean conservation through recognition of key biodiversity areas in the Southern Ocean from multispecies tracking data
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Biodiversity is critical for maintaining ecosystem function but is threatened by increasing anthropogenic pressures. In the Southern Ocean, a highly biologically productive region containing many endemic species, proactive management is urgently needed to mitigate increasing pressures from fishing, climate change, and tourism. Site-based conservation is one important tool for managing the negative impacts of human activities on ecosystems. The Key Biodiversity Area (KBA) Standard is a standardized framework used to define sites vital for the persistence of global biodiversity based on criteria and quantitative thresholds. We used tracking data from 14 species of Antarctic and subantarctic seabirds and pinnipeds from the publicly available Retrospective Analysis of Antarctic Tracking Data (RAATD) data set to define KBAs for a diverse suite of marine predators. We used track2kba, an R package that supports identification of KBAs from telemetry data through identification of highly used habitat areas and estimates of local abundance within sites. We compared abundance estimates at each site with thresholds for KBA criteria A1, B1, and D1 (related to globally threatened species, individual geographically restricted species, and demographic aggregations, respectively). We identified 30 potential KBAs for 13 species distributed throughout the Southern Ocean that were vital for each individual species, population, and life-history stage for which they were determined. These areas were identified as highly used by these populations based on observational data and complement the ongoing habitat modeling and bioregionalization work that has been used to prioritize conservation areas in this region. Although further work is needed to identify potential KBAs based on additional current and future data sets, we highlight the benefits of utilizing KBAs as part of a holistic approach to marine conservation, given their significant value as a global conservation tool.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
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The evolution of the cave's entrance of Bruniquel and consequences for its accessibility by early Homo neanderthalensis
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The cave of Bruniquel, discovered by cavers in 1990, contains the oldest evidence of deep cave use by early Homo neanderthalensis. The discovery and dating of speleothem-based structures and fireplaces demonstrated their ability to investigate the deep subterranean environment in a structured way (Jaubert et al., 2016). The cave has been closed by a succession of rockfalls, flowstone layers and scree cone deposits, which led to the preservation of multiple traces of human and animal activity inside the cave. We studied the cave entrance evolution through a multidisciplinary integrated geomorphological approach, combining 3D surveys inside and outside the cave system, high-resolution geomorphological mapping, Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT), and U-series dating. The combination of stratigraphic surveys and U-series dating allowed us to date the closure of the cave to before 142.9 ± 1.3 ka, before the Last Interglacial, thus independently confirming the age of the speleothem structures and of the other traces observed on the cave floor. The proposed virtual 3D reconstruction of the palaeo-cave entrance at the beginning of MIS 6, suggests an entrance less than 2 m high, implying that the space behind the entrance was rapidly dark. This work highlights the central importance of understanding the evolution of cave entrances for constraining the timing and the modalities of use of cave systems and provides a new palaeogeographic framework for future studies of the cave's occupation by early Homo neanderthalensis.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Gekko (Gekko) , a new dark-colored tokay gecko from the Thai-Malay border (Squamata, Gekkonidae)
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We describe Gekko dam sp. nov. based on type specimens from a limestone hill in Palian District, Trang Province, southern peninsular Thailand. The new species is also found in Satun Province, southern peninsular Thailand, and in Perlis State, northwestern Peninsular Malaysia. A member of the subgenus Gekko, it differs from all currently recognized Gekko species by the following combination of morphological characters and pattern: maximal known snout-vent length of 149.1 mm, lack of contact between nostrils and rostral, 21–24 interorbital scales between supraciliaries, 72–83 scale rows around midbody, 12–14 dorsal tubercle rows at midbody, 26–28 ventral scale rows at midbody, 22 precloacal pores in males, two postcloacal tubercles on each side of the base of the tail, 14–17 subdigital lamellae on 1st toe and 19–21 on 4th toe, a Y-shaped mark on head, white spots on head, dark grey to black dorsal background with four regular bands of contrasting white spots on dorsum between limb insertions, throat and venter white with orange patches, and a copper iris.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Carboniferous fossils enlighten the systematics and evolution of Hemiptera
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Fossils are witnesses to the evolutionary processes undergone by living lineages. The earliest occurrence of clades provides rich insights into the timing of diversification of lineages and better delimits the groups that compose them. Hemiptera are a remarkable order within the insects due to their high morphological and ecological diversity. However, our understanding of the early evolution of this group remains hampered by the lack of early hemipteran occurrences. In this study we investigate the earliest Carboniferous occurrences of Hemiptera, taking advantage of the redescription of known specimens, and describe three new key hemipteran fossils. We provide thorough taxonomic assessments to describe the earliest occurrences of the Auchenorrhyncha and Sternorrhyncha lineages that constitute major branches in the Hemiptera tree of life. These new occurrences sharpen the delimitations within the classification of Hemiptera and enable better understanding of forewing venation evolution within this hyper-diverse insect order. The following new taxa are described: Protoprosbolomorpha infraorder nov. for Protoprosbole straeleni Laurentiaux, Carbonaturidae fam. nov., Carbonatura oudardi gen. et sp. nov. and Carbopsyllidium minutum gen. et sp. nov.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Revision of the longirostrine crocodylian Thoracosaurus isorhynchus from the Maastrichtian–Danian of northwestern Europe
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A highly debated topic in eusuchian systematics has been the placement of “thoracosaurs,” an assemblage of Cretaceous–Paleogene longirostrine crocodylians from Europe and North America. The position of “thoracosaurs” varies from one study to the next, from being the sister taxon of the extant Gavialis to being excluded from the crown group Crocodylia entirely. Despite these issues, “thoracosaurs” have been understudied, with many taxa suffering from incomplete or outdated descriptions and dubious taxonomic assignment. Here, we provide a comprehensive study of Thoracosaurus isorhynchus from Maastrichtian–Danian deposits of northwestern Europe. We present and describe new material from the type locality of T. isorhynchus. In addition, we redescribe and figure the lectotype and paralectotypes of the species, as well as the material from the Maastrichtian type area, the Netherlands. Moreover, comparison of T. isorhynchus with the type material of Thoracosaurus “scanicus” of the Danian of southern Sweden indicates that the latter might be a junior synonym of T. isorhynchus, suggesting the survival of this species across the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. An array of phylogenetic analyses points to a close relationship between T. isorhynchus and the Cenomanian Portugalosuchus azenhae. This implies an early emergence of “thoracosaurs” and causes extensive ghost lineages within Gavialoidea, highlighting the stratigraphic inconsistency of this group and a need for a thorough revision of other “thoracosaurs.”
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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A trait-based framework to identify North Sea fauna vulnerable to underwater noise
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In the absence of an internationally coordinated management strategy, continued exploitation of the North Sea is expected to exacerbate underwater radiated noise (URN), heightening risks of adverse impacts on marine life. Identifying indicator species and their habitats is a fundamental step in the EU framework for setting a scientifically grounded underwater noise limit value (UNLV). While past research has primarily emphasized marine mammals, there is an increasing effort to highlight that the impacts of URN extend to fishes and invertebrates. To support indicator species selection in the North Sea for URN risk assessment, a trait-based vulnerability scoring system for marine mammals, fishes and invertebrates was developed. Each scoring system evaluates multiple attributes related to a species' capacity to detect and produce sound, as well as the documented impacts from both impulsive and continuous anthropogenic noise, and highlights species of particular concern and socio-ecological significance. Five potential indicator species were identified from each of the three taxonomic groups (marine mammals, fishes and invertebrates) for URN risk assessment. The proposed vulnerability scoring system serves as an adaptive framework, open to iterative refinement as bioacoustics knowledge advances. Although data gaps persist, the establishment of regional UNLV to safeguard vulnerable species should not be delayed. By linking URN exposure with key habitats of identified indicator species, this approach facilitates an ecosystem-based management of URN in the North Sea and provides a transferable framework for other regions.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
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Long bone variability in true seals (Mammalia, Phocidae), with implications for understanding their fossil record
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Historically, humeri and femora have been treated as diagnostic elements for fossil phocid (Carnivora, Pinnipedia, Phocidae) identification. This resulted in the naming of a plethora of extinct phocid taxa with isolated humeri and femora as type specimens. However, the documented evidence of sexual dimorphism in pinnipeds, including qualitative and preliminary quantitative studies of long bone shapes, indicates the existence of both intra- and interspecific variation; their respective strengths will help determine whether long bones should or should not be used for taxonomy. The present study quantitatively assesses the morphological variability of phocid long bones, using 3D geometric morphometrics on a large sample (n = 145) covering 16 extant taxa. Morphospaces resulting from principal component analyses sort both extant phocid subfamilies (Phocinae and Monachinae) well, for both humeri and femora. Thus, this study suggests that humeri and femora might be diagnostic enough only to differentiate between subfamilies and maybe some genera, but usually lack clear genus- or species-specific shapes when variability is considered. As such, isolated long bones are preferably not to be used as type specimens. A taxonomic reassessment of holotypes of fossil species based on isolated long bones on a taxon-by-taxon basis is therefore warranted.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2026
