Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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The small-mammal assemblage from Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium): environmental and climatic approach of the marine isotope stage 3 in North-Western Europe
- Small mammal faunas from the Pleistocene of Belgium are not well-known. Some have been studied from the second half of the Late Pleistocene and the Early Holocene. However, only a few sites from the first half of the Late Pleistocene (Marine Isotope Stage 3, MIS 3, ca. 60-30 ka) have yielded small mammal assemblages. Among them is the Marie-Jeanne Cave that is situated in the southeast of Belgium, in the Ardennes region. It is formed in the Early Carboniferous limestone deposits above the Meuse River, near the town of Hastière-Lavaux. The excavated deposits evidenced ten different layers but only the layers 6 to 2 yieldeda large collection of faunal remains. Recent dating of the stratigraphic sequence of the Marie-Jeanne Cave shows that these layers have a chronological range pertaining to MIS 3 (about 50-40 ka BP). During the first field campaign in 1943, about 40 m3 of sedimentswereextracted recovering a large collection of disarticulated bone fragments and several plant, mollusc and archaeological remains housed at the RBINS. A first study of this material underlined the presence of 29 taxa of insectivores, bats and rodents. The recent revision of the material revealed 9897 identified specimens, corresponding to a minimum of 4980 individuals. This permitted us to add to the previous list two vole species, the steppe lemming Lagurus lagurus and the European pine vole Microtus (Terricola) subterraneus. We also undertook new paleoenvironmental and paleoclimatic reconstructions based on alternative methods from those previously used for the MIS 3 sequence of the Marie-Jeanne Cave. Our results indicate that MIS 3 is characterized by dynamic alternations of forest expansion with semiarid area expansion in accordance with the warming and cooling, respectively, of the sea-surface temperatures. It was in this context of rapid fluctuations that the terrestrial sequence of the Marie-Jeanne Cave in north-western Europe was formed. The fossiliferous layers underwent cold and dry environmental and climatic conditions. This is indicated by lower temperatures and slightly higher precipitation than today, together with an environment dominated by open woodland formations and open dry meadows. Our results are consistent with the available chronological, large-mammal, herpetofaunal, and mollusc datasets for this lower part of the sequence. They are also consistent with regional loess studies in Belgium and with previous work performed on small mammals from MIS 3 in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe. Grant Information: Generalitat de Catalunya projects, Synthesis Grants, PhD grant of the Erasmus Mundus Programme - International Doctorate in Quaternary and Prehistory.
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Environmental and climatic reconstruction of MIS 3 in northwestern Europe using the small-mammal assemblage from Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium)
- Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3, ca. 60–30 ka) is characterized by dynamic alternations of forest expansion with semi-arid area expansion in accordance with the warming and cooling, respectively, of the sea-surface temperatures in Northern Europe. It was in this context of rapid fluctuations that the terrestrial sequence of Caverne Marie-Jeanne (Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium) in northwestern Europe was formed. The habitat weighting method and the bioclimaticmodel, as well as the Simpson diversity index, are applied to the small-mammal assemblage of CaverneMarie-Jeanne in order to reconstruct the environmental and climatic fluctuations that are reflected in the MIS 3 sequence of the cave. Revision of the small-mammal fossil material deposited in the collections of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS, Brussels, Belgium) shows that the lower layers (6 to 4) of the cave, pertaining to MIS 3 (ca. 50–40 ka), underwent cold, dry environmental and climatic conditions for these layers. This is indicated by temperatures lower than at present and precipitation slightly higher than at present, together with an environment dominated by openwoodland formations and open dry meadows. Our results are consistent with the available chronological, large-mammal, herpetofaunal and mollusc datasets for this lower part of the sequence. They are also consistentwith regional loess studies in Belgium andwith previouswork performed on small mammals from MIS 3 in Belgium and elsewhere in Europe.
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Climate change impact on wind, waves and surges
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Survival analyses of unspecialized myrmecophiles in nests of their preferred, but aggressive host and in nests of non-hosts (Hymenoptera: Formicidae)
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Banning paraphylies and executing Linnaean taxonomy is discordant and reduces the evolutionary and semantic information content of biological nomenclature
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Rapport concernant la présence de Manzonia vigoensis (Rolan, 1983) (Gastropoda: Rissoidae) à Peniche sur la côte ouest du Portugal
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Pommeroeul Le Grand Marais (Hainaut, Belgique) : un habitat, un moulin hydraulique et un atelier de bronzier gallo-romains ?
- Printed and available in 2020
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Effects of the use of noise-mitigation during offshore pile driving on harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena)
- In recent years, noise-mitigation technology became more efficient and noise levels during pile driving were reduced significantly. Using passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) datasets from 2016 (Nobelwind construction – no noise mitigation) and 2019 (Northwester 2 and SeaMade construction – Double Big Bubble Curtain) we analyse whether noise mitigation measures applied during the construction of offshore wind farms influenced the likelihood of detecting harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena) during pile driving in the Belgian part of the North Sea (BPNS). Exploratory analyses indicate reductions to the spatial and temporal extent of avoidance of the construction area by porpoise when noise mitigation is applied. Without noise mitigation, mean detection rates of porpoises reduced up to 15-20 km from the pile driving location. With noise mitigation however, mean detection rates of porpoises reduced to a lesser extent and this reduction mainly took place at 0-10 km from the pile driving.
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Robot-miners for a new mining future
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The ROBOMINERS mineralogical sensors: spectrometer prototypes for autonomous in-stream, in-slurry geochemical diagnostics.
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The ROBOMINERS mineralogical sensors: spectrometer prototypes for autonomous in-stream, in-slurry geochemical diagnostics.
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A new mining life for non-feasible mineral deposits?
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Suction feeding preceded filtering in baleen whale evolution
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Milieueffectenbeoordeling van het BELWIND offshore windmolenpark op de Bligh Bank
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Offshore windfarm impact assessment: monitoring of marine mammals during 2010. In: S. Degraer, R. Brabant & B. Rumes (Eds.). Offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: selected findings from the baseline and targeted monitoring.pp.131-146
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Radar research on the impact of offshore wind farms on birds: Preparing to go offshore. In: Degraer, S., Brabant, R., Rumes, B. (Eds.), 2012. Offshore windfarms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: heading for an understanding of environmental impacts.
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Executive Summary. In Degraer S., Brabant R., Rumes B., (Eds.), 2012. Offshore wind farms in the Belgian part of the North Sea: Heading for an understanding of environmental impacts.pp. 1-8
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Een zeldzame Otodus obliquus Agassiz, 1843 uit een zand-suppletie op het strand van Dishoek (Walcheren, Nederland)
- In this contribution, we describe a tooth of Otodus obliquus Agassiz, 1843, found in sand supplementation material on the beach of Dishoek, Walcheren (The Netherlands). Even though this species has a broad distribution in Paleocene and early Eocene successions in Western Europe, in the Netherlands it was thus far only known to occur reworked in younger strata in the subsurface of the northern part of the country, and has never been described from sand supplementation material. The described specimen was found in material dredged up from the Middeldiep, a trough in the Zeeuwse Banken area. The associated mollusk fauna suggests that the material is derived from the mid-Pleistocene to early Holocene Kreftenheye Formation, in which the described early Eocene tooth likely occurred as reworked. Potentially, it was originally derived from the early Eocene Tielt Formation, outcropping to the south of Brugge, Belgium, and transported by local rivers to the Zeeuwse Banken area during the Pleistocene. Alternatively, flint and chalk material present in the sand supplementation material suggests that the described specimen could also be originated across the North Sea, derived from the early Eocene Harwich and London Clay deposits exposed in Kent and Essex (England) and transported eastwards by the paleo-Thames.
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Een tijdelijke ontsluiting bij Euverem: nieuwe inzichten in de Campanien/Maastrichtien overgang in het type-Maastrichtien
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Het Paleogeen: een cruciaal tijdperk voor de evolutie van zoogdieren
- Mammals have been around for about 200 million years, and have developed to be one of the most successful animal groups on the planet. In particular the evolutionary steps during the Paleogene Period have been key in this success story. In this contribution, we discus some of the most important developments in mammal evolution during this time period. After the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) extinction (66 million years ago), many ecological niches that were taken by other species became available for the surviving mammals. The first million years after this mass extinction involved a lot of diversification and gave rise to a great diversity of Cenozoic mammals. Additionally, the Paleogene is defined by some of the most intense periods of climate change in the last 100 million years, characterized by hyperthermals such as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). These climate-events probably were important drivers of evolution in the Paleogene.
