Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Non-adult fracture patterns in Late and Post-medieval Flanders, a Comparison of a Churchyard and a Church Assemblage
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Population dynamics and demographic history of Eurasian collared lemmings
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. How to interpret the offset between marls and limestones of carbon isotopes on the bulk rocks in Zumaia GSSP (Spain)?
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Chromosomal inversions from an initial ecotypic divergence drive a gradual repeated radiation of Galápagos beetles
- Island faunas exhibit some of the most iconic examples where similar forms repeatedly evolve within different islands. Yet, whether these deterministic evolutionary trajectories within islands are driven by an initial, singular divergence and the subsequent exchange of individuals and adaptive genetic variation between islands remains unclear. Here, we study a gradual, repeated evolution of low-dispersive highland ecotypes from a dispersive lowland ecotype of Calosoma beetles along the island progression of the Galápagos. We show that repeated highland adaptation involved selection on multiple shared alleles within extensive chromosomal inversions that originated from an initial adaptation event on the oldest island. These highland inversions first spread through dispersal of highland individuals. Subsequent admixture with the lowland ecotype resulted in polymorphic dispersive populations from which the highland populations evolved on the youngest islands. Our findings emphasize the significance of an ancient divergence in driving repeated evolution and highlight how a mixed contribution of inter-island colonization and within-island evolution can shape parallel species communities.
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New insights on ancient cetacean migrations from oxygen-isotope analyses of a Mediterranean Pleistocene whale barnacle
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Phylum Annelida. Class Clitellata: Subclass Oligochaeta.
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Annotated type catalogue of Orthalicoidea (Mollusca, Gastropoda) in the Natural History Museum, London: A supplement
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De rivierkreeft vogelvrij verklaard?
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The Muricidae (Gastropoda: Muricoidea) of Walters Shoal
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A classification update of the subfamilies, genera and species of living Muricidae (Gastropoda: Neogastropoda: Muricoidea) with notes on recently named taxa and additional comments
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Le genre Drupa Röding, 1798 (Muricidae: Rapaninae) et genres assimilés dans l'Indo-Pacifique
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4DEMON: Integrating 40 Years of Data on PCB and Metal Contamination in Marine Sediments of the Belgian Part of the North Sea
- The assessment of historical data is important to understand long-term changes in the marine environment. Whereas time series analyses based on monitoring data typically span one or two decades, this work aimed to integrate 40 years of monitoring and research data on polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and metals in the Belgian Part of the North Sea (BPNS). Multiple challenges were encountered: sampling locations changed over time, different analytical methods were applied, different grain size fractions were analyzed, appropriate co-factors were not always analyzed, and measurement uncertainties were not always indicated. These issues hampered the use of readily available, highly standardized trend modeling approaches like those proposed by regional sea conventions such as OSPAR, named after the Oslo and Paris conventions.Therefore, we applied alternative approaches, allowing us to include most older historical data that have been obtained during the nineteen seventies and eighties. Our approach included reproducible and quality controlled procedures from data collection up to data assessment. It included spatial clustering, data normalization and parametric linear mixed effect modeling. A Ward hierarchical clustering was applied on recently obtained contaminant data, as the basis for a spatial division of the BPNS into five distinct areas with different contamination profiles. To minimize the risk of normalization errors for the metal data analyses, four normalization approaches were applied and mutually compared: granulometric and nickel (Ni) normalization, next to two hybrid normalization methods combining aluminum (Al) and iron (Fe) normalization. The long-term models revealed decreasing trends for most metals, except zinc (Zn) for which three out of four models showed increasing concentrations in all five zones of the BPNS. Offshore sediments contained the lowest normalized mercury (Hg) and cadmium (Cd) concentrations but high arsenic (As) concentrations. Trend analysis revealed a strong decrease in PCB concentrations in the nineteen eighties and nineties, followed by a slight increase over the last decade. The extended timeframe for contaminant assessment, as applied in this study, is of added value for scientists and policy makers, as the approach allows to detect trends and effects of anthropogenic activities within the marine environment within a broad perspective.
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Latest Cretaceous hadrosaurid dinosaurs from Eastern Asia
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A new basal neoceratopsian dinosaur from the ‘middle’ Cretaceous of Jilin Province, China
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Cranial endocasts of the two hadrosaurids from Blagoveschensk, Amur Region (Russia)
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A new latest Cretaceous dinosaur locality in northeastern China
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Taphonomy and age profile of a latest Cretaceous bonebed in Far Eastern Russia
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The latest Cretaceous hadrosaurid dinosaurs from Heilongjiang Province (China) and Amur Region (Russia)
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A reappraisal of Aralosaurus tuberiferus (Dinosauria, Hadrosauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of Kazakhstan
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Sondages exploratoires dans le ‘Cran aux Iguanodons’ de Bernissart
