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Article Reference Camels in the northern Provinces of the Roman Empire
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference A peculiar case of intraspecific variability in the Chinese Notholca dongtingensis (Rotifera: Monogononta: Brachionidae)
We review the rare Chinese rotifer Notholca dongtingensis Zhuge, Kutikova & Sudzuki, 1998, including abundant material collected during the winter months of 2009–2011 in and around the man-made Dishui Lake Southeast of Shanghai, PR China. Both an SEM study of its trophi and an account of its intraspecific variability are provided. The latter consists in particular of a unique and previously unknown type of spine formation involving the anterolateral spines, a character previously considered morphologically constant and even diagnostic in Notholca and related genera. The observations indicate that phenotypic plasticity invoked by a plesiomorphic triggering mechanism is not per se connected to the type or position of structures developed, but may activate responses resulting in the formation of quite different, autapomorphic structures throughout monogonont Rotifera.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Inproceedings Reference Ishango a history of discoveries in the Democratic republic of Congo (DRC) and in Belgium
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Une hache-pendeloque néolithique en néphrite alpine découverte à Ouffet «Houp-le-Loup»
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Optical dating of tidal sediments: Potentials and limits inferred from the North Sea coast
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Sequence mapping of Holocene coastal lowlands. The application of the Streif classification system in the Belgian coastal plain
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference The Streif classification system: a tribute to an alternative system for organising and mapping Holocene coastal deposits
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Incollection Reference DNA Barcoding Amphibians and Reptiles
Only a few major research programs are currently targeting COI barcoding of amphibians and reptiles (including chelonians and crocodiles), two major groups of tetrapods. Amphibian and reptile species are typically old, strongly divergent, and contain deep conspecifi c lineages which might lead to problems in species assignment with incomplete reference databases. As far as known, there is no single pair of COI primers that will guarantee a suffi cient rate of success across all amphibian and reptile taxa, or within major subclades of amphibians and reptiles, which means that the PCR amplifi cation strategy needs to be adjusted depending on the specifi c research question. In general, many more amphibian and reptile taxa have been sequenced for 16S rDNA, which for some purposes may be a suitable complementary marker, at least until a more comprehensive COI reference database becomes available. DNA barcoding has successfully been used to identify amphibian larval stages (tadpoles) in species-rich tropical assemblages. Tissue sampling, DNA extraction, and amplifi cation of COI is straightforward in amphibians and reptiles. Single primer pairs are likely to have a failure rate between 5 and 50\% if taxa of a wide taxonomic range are targeted; in such cases the use of primer cocktails or subsequent hierarchical usage of different primer pairs is necessary. If the target group is taxonomically limited, many studies have followed a strategy of designing specifi c primers which then allow an easy and reliable amplifi cation of all samples.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Applicability of DNA barcoding to museum specimens of birds from the Democratic Republic of the Congo
The ornithological collections of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels contain approximately 155 000 specimens collected in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) . They include type specimens and other samples from historical populations that represent an exceptional source of information for exploring how habitat fragmentation due to deforestation or global climate changes affect patterns of biodiversity in African birds . By attempting to obtain DNA sequences from these archive collections we intend to make them useful for genetic studies and to contribute to a reference library of DNA sequences, thus allowing the future iden- tification of Central African bird species through DNA barcodes . Our project aims to sequence approximately 950 mu- seum specimens, representing 225 species, collected between 1845 and 2008 . Our preliminary results reveal that the degradation of DNA in most museum specimens does not allow the amplification of the standard DNA barcode fragment (694 bp) . Nevertheless, we have been able to sequence shorter fragments (298 bp and 100 bp) for the majority of the selected specimens, implying that the collections in the RMCA and the RBINS contain DNA information that remains useful for barcoding purposes . More elaborate experiments might yield longer DNA sequences for phylogenetic and phylogeographic studies .
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Exploring species level taxonomy and species delimitation methods in the facultatively self-fertilizing land snail genus Rumina (Gastropoda: Pulmonata)
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications