Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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An Early Devonian flora from the Baviaanskloof Formation (Table Mountain Group) of South Africa
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Taxonomic revision and palaeoecological interpretation of the plant assemblage of Bernissart (Barremian, Belgium)
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A Late Devonian refugium for Colpodexylon (Lycopsida) at high latitude
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The Devonian–Carboniferous boundary in Belgium and surrounding areas
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New insights into the affinities, autoecology, and habit of the Mesozoic fern Weichselia reticulata based on the revision of stems from Bernissart (Mons Basin, Belgium)
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An exceptionally diverse Early Devonian flora from the Lochkovian of South Africa.
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New insight of the Early Cretaceous Pinaceae diversity from Belgium.
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An exceptionally diverse Early Devonian flora from the Lochkovian of South Africa
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Pinaceae diversity from the Lower Cretaceous of Belgium
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Belgium is the best place to define the Devonian-Carboniferous Boundary
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Assessing the diversity of insect damage traces in the fossil flora of Gelinden (Limburg, Belgium)
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A tribute to Philippe Gerrienne: a mentor, a colleague, a friend.
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Paleobotany in Liège, lets dig into the past…
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Pinaceae diversity from the Lower Cretaceous of Belgium.
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Assessing the diversity of insect damage traces in the fossil flora of Gelinden (Limburg, Belgium).
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Structurally stable but functionally disrupted marine microbial communities under a future climate change scenario: Potential importance for nitrous oxide emissions
- The blue mussel Mytilus edulis is a widespread and abundant bivalve species along the North Sea with high economic and ecological importance as an engineer species. The shell of mussels is intensively colonized by microbial organisms that can produce significant quantities of nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas. To characterize the impacts of climate change on the composition, structure and functioning of microbial biofilms on the shell surface of M. edulis, we experimentally exposed them to orthogonal combinations of increased seawater temperature (20 vs. 23 ◦C) and decreased pH (8.0 vs. 7.7) for six weeks. We used amplicon sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene to characterize the alpha and beta diversity of microbial communities on the mussel shell. The functioning of microbial biofilms was assessed by measuring aerobic respiration and nitrogen emission rates. We did not report any significant impacts of climate change treatments on the diversity of mussel microbiomes nor on the structure of these communities. Lowered pH and increased temperature had antagonistic effects on the functioning of microbial communities with decreased aerobic respiration and N2O emission rates of microbial biofilms in acidified seawater compared to increased rates in warmer conditions. An overriding impact of acidification over warming was finally observed on N2O emissions when the two factors were combined. Although acidification and warming in combination significantly reduced N2O biofilm emissions, the promotion of aquaculture activities in coastal waters where shellfish do not normally occur at high biomass and density could nonetheless result in unwanted emissions of this greenhouse gas in a near future.
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Assessing the potential of multi-use to reduce cumulative impacts in the marine environment
- The intentional combination of two or more marine activities with the purpose of sharing space, infrastructure, resources and/or operations, referred to as multiuse, is gaining attention as a means to reduce the spatial footprint of human activities but possibly also its ecological footprint. In this study, the Spatial Cumulative Assessment of Impact Risk for Management (SCAIRM) method was adapted and applied to assess whether multi-use can reduce the ecological footprint in terms of the cumulative impacts on the marine ecosystem, by integrating multiple offshore activities in different configurations as compared to these activities separated in space, referred to as single-use. These configurations combine renewable energy, aquaculture, nature restoration and tourism activities, in different combinations. For the sake of this multi-use assessment these activities were subdivided into actions, their allocation in space and time represented in scenarios (e.g. single-use versus multi-use) which were then evaluated in terms of their ecological footprint (i.e. Impact Risk). The main finding is that the calculated Impact Risk in multi-use is often lower than that in single-use and in any case never higher. This study also shows that there is still much to be gained in terms of further reduction in Impact Risk through an optimization of the multi-use design by comparing the scenario based on actual pilots deemed more realistic (i.e. co-existence with limited synergies) with a hypothetical optimal scenario (i.e. multi-functional).
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The Iron Ore Deposits of Belgium
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System-to-system interface between the EMSA CleanSeaNet service and OSERIT: the potential synergies between remote sensing and modelling in case of marine pollution
- The European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) develop and operate together a system-to-system interface between the EMSA’s CleanSeaNet service and OSERIT, the Belgian Oil Spill Evaluation and Response Integrated Tool. This interface is meant to provide CleanSeaNet users with a support tool for early and automatic oil drift and fate simulation results of any satellite-detected oil spills reported by the CleanSeaNet service in the North Sea and the English Channel. In view of the automatic forecast and backtrack simulations results, CleanSeaNet users have the possibility to further refine this early risk assessment either by activating their own national decision support system or by requesting new, advanced simulations through the CleanSeaNet GIS viewer. This interface is currently passing the final acceptance tests. However, the system has already been used by RBINS for the oil pollution event subsequent to the Flinterstar sinking at 8km off the port of Zeebruges on the 6th of October 2015. This event perfectly illustrates the potential synergies of remote sensing and modelling in case of marine pollution and their integration in risk assessments that must be performed for any significant pollution of the marine system.
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Variation that can be expected when using particle tracking models in connectivity studies
