Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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developing IOT sensors to improve knowledge and safety of the marine and lacustrine waters in Benin
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Evaluating the effects of man-made structures on the functioning of the benthic system in the North Sea
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Restoring European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) beds in Belgian waters: a feasibility study
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MSFD – D5 Eutrophication
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Social, economic and cultural options to recover from eutrophication
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How larval traits of six flatfish species impact population connectivity?
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Segmented worms (Phylum Annelida): a celebration of twenty years of progress through Zootaxa and call for action on the taxonomic work that remains
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MORPHYLL: A database of fossil leaves and their morphological traits
- Morphometric characters of fossil leaves such as size and shape are important and widely used sources for reconstructing palaeoenvironments. Various tools, including CLAMP or Leaf Margin Analysis, utilize leaf traits as input parameters for estimating palaeoclimate, mostly based on correlations between traits and climate parameters of extant plants. During the last few years, the scope of information extracted from the morphology of fossil leaves has been further expanded by including leaf economics, which describe correlations between functional leaf traits and ecological strategies. The amount and quality of available data are essential for a successful palaeoecological analysis utilizing leaf traits. Here, the database MORPHYLL is described. This database is devised to offer a web-based resource for fossil leaf trait data. For this purpose, fossil leaves from various collections were digitized and morphometric traits extracted from leaf outlines. Besides metadata such as accession number, repository, fossil site or taxonomic information (for identified specimens), MORPHYLL offers queries for several morphometric parameters and derived ecophysiological traits (e.g., leaf mass per area). Currently, the database contains data from about 6000 fossil leaves from sites in Central Europe, spanning almost the entire Paleogene and part of the early Neogene. The application potential of the database is demonstrated by conducting some exemplary analyses of leaf traits for the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene, with the results indicating changes of mean leaf traits through time. For example, the results show leaf mass per area to peak during the Eocene, which is in accordance with general climate development during the Paleogene.
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A subjective global checklist (submitted)of the Recent non-marine Ostracoda (Crustacea).
- We present an updated, subjective list of the extant, non-marine ostracod genera and species of the world, with their distributions in the major zoogeographical regions, as well as a list of the genera in their present hierarchical taxonomic positions. The list includes all taxa described and taxonomic alterations made up to 1 July 2018. Taxonomic changes include 17 new combinations, 5 new names, 1 emended specific name and 11 new synonymies (1 tribe, 4 genera, 6 species). Taking into account the recognized synonymies, there are presently 2330 subjective species of non-marine ostracods in 270 genera. The most diverse family in non-marine habitats is the Cyprididae, comprising 43.2% of all species, followed by the Candonidae (29.0%), Entocytheridae (9.1%) and the Limnocytheridae (7.0%). An additional 13 families comprise the remaining 11.8% of described species. The Palaearctic zoogeographical region has the greatest number of described species (799), followed by the Afrotropical region with 453 species and the Nearctic region with 439 species. The Australasian and Neotropical regions each have 328 and 333 recorded species, respectively, while the Oriental region has 271. The vast majority of non-marine ostracods (89.8%) are endemic to one zoogeographical region, while only six species are found in six or more regions. We also present an additional list with ‘uncertain species’, which have neither been redescribed nor re-assessed since 1912, and which are excluded from the main list; a list of taxonomic changes presented in the present paper; a table with the number of species and % per family; and a table with numbers of new species described in the 20-year period between 1998 and 2017 per zoogeographical region. Two figures visualize the total number of species and endemic species per zoogeographical region, and the numbers of new species descriptions per decade for all families and the three largest families since 1770, respectively.
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Four new genera and five new species of “Heterocypris” from Western Australia (Crustacea, Ostracoda, Cyprinotinae).
- Five new species in four new genera from Western Australia are described. All species have valve characters that are reminiscent of the genus Heterocypris Claus, 1892 and also have similar valve outlines, with highly arched valves. However, all species have a hemipenis morphology that is totally different from the typical form in Heterocypris. In Patcypris gen. nov. (with type species P. outback gen. et sp. nov.), the lateral lobe is large and shaped as a pickaxe, while the medial lobe is divided into two distal lobes. Trilocypris gen. nov. (with type species T. horwitzi gen. et sp. nov.) is characterised by a hemipenis that has three, instead of two, distal lobes. In Bilocypris gen. nov. (with type species B. fortescuensis gen. et sp. nov. and a second species, B. mandoraensis gen. et sp. nov.), the lateral lobe of the hemipenis is spatulate, rather than boot-shaped, and the medial lobe is bilobed. Billcypris gen. nov. (with type species B. davisae gen. et sp. nov.) has a large and sub-rectangular lateral lobe and a pointed medial lobe. We discuss the taxonomic value of the traditional and new morphological characters and speculate that the diversity of this cluster of genera and species may be greater than currently known.
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Understanding the biodiversity and evolutionary history of the amphipod genus Eusirus in the Southern Ocean
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Unravelling the evolutionary processes that shaped the diversity of the amphipod genus Eusirus in the Southern Ocean
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Reconstructing population histories and biogeography of Antarctic Charcotia (Amphipoda, Crustacea)
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Refugia and ecosystem tolerance in the Southern Ocean – the RECTO project
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Evolutionary processes that shaped the diversity of the amphipod genus Eusirus in the Southern Ocean
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Estimating the actual biodiversity and evolutionary history of the amphipod genus Eusirus in the Southern Ocean
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Genetic diversity and connectivity of the Eusirus perdentatus species complex (Amphipoda, Crustacea) on the Antarctic continental shelf
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Phenotypical and genetic characters of the giant Antarctic Eusirus of the perdentatus complex, with the presentation of a new species
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Metagenomics of tsunami deposits using eDNA: First results from the Shetland Islands, U.K.
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The Biodiversity of deep-sea Scavenging Amphipoda in the Pacific Ocean.
