Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Soil-litter ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) community response to reforested lands of Gishwati tropical montane forest, northern-western part of Rwanda
- Recently, human activities have impacted biodiversity-rich forest in western Rwanda, creating a need to enhance restoration activities of degraded lands in the region. To evaluate the effects of reforestation activities on the community composition of soil-litter ants, research was conducted in Gishwati tropical montane forest, located in northern-western part of Rwanda. The ant fauna was studied in reforested lands dominated by regenerated native species and exotic tree species. Further, a primary forest made of native trees served as a reference. In each forest type, nine sampling points were used to sample ants. Ant specimens were collected using pitfalls, hand sampling and Winkler extractor. They were identified to subfamilies, genus and species levels using dichotomous keys, and also statistically analysed for species richness, diversity, evenness and community composition. We collected a total of 2,481 individuals from 5 subfamilies, 18 genera and 35 species. Higher abundance, diversity and species richness were found in soil-litter under natural primary and secondary forests dominated by regenerated native plant species compared to exotic tree forest. The ant community composition analysis indicated higher similarities in ant species sampled under primary native forest and secondary forest dominated by regenerated native species. Reforestation by regenerating native species may be given priority in restoration of degraded lands due to their importance in species richness and species diversity
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Effect of insecticide treatment on arboreal ant community structure in small holder Cocoa farm in the centre region of Cameroon
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An annotated taxonomic checklist of the Neotropical Gracillariidae (Lepidoptera) with links to the inforamtion on host plants and parasitoids
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Microbilogical, clinical and molecular findings of non-typhoidal Salmonella bloodstream infections associated with malaria, Oriental Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Crocidurobia faini n.sp. (Acariformes: Myobiidae), a new mite species prasitising shrews of the genus Crocidura Wagler (Soricomorpha: Soricidae) in DR Congo
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New discoveries of tetrapods (ichthyostegid-like and whatcheeriid-like) in the Famennian (Late Devonian) localities of Strud and Becco (Belgium).
- The origin of tetrapods is one of the key events in vertebrate history. The oldest tetrapod body fossils are Late Devonian (Frasnian–Famennian) in age, most of them consisting of rare isolated bone elements. Here we describe tetrapod remains from two Famennian localities from Belgium: Strud, in the Province of Namur, and Becco, in the Province of Liège. The newly collected material consists of an isolated complete postorbital, fragments of two maxillae, and one putative partial cleithrum, all from Strud, and an almost complete maxilla from Becco. The two incomplete maxillae and cleithrum from Strud, together with the lower jaw previously recorded from this site, closely resemble the genus Ichthyostega, initially described from East Greenland.The postorbital from Strud and the maxilla from Becco do not resemble the genus Ichthyostega. They show several derived anatomical characters allowing their tentative assignment to a whatcheeriid-grade group. The new tetrapod records show that there are at least two tetrapod taxa in Belgium and almost certainly two different tetrapod taxa at Strud. This locality joins the group of Devonian tetrapod-bearing localities yielding more than one tetrapod taxon, confirming that environments favourable to early tetrapod life were often colonized by several tetrapod taxa.
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Review of the fur-mite genus Soricilichus Fain, 1970 (Acariformes: Chirodiscidae) - symbionts of the African shrews of the subfamily Crocidurinae (Soricomorpha: Soricidae)
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A new species of Hercostomus Loew, 1857 (Diptera: Dolichopodidae) from Turkey
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Exhumation de la collection faunique d’Edouard Dupont provenant du Trou Magrite (Pont-à-Less, Belgique). Quelles données et quelles perspectives pour une collection du XIX siècle ?
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Isotopic evidence for dietary ecology of late Neandertalsin North-Western Europe
- The Late Pleistocene site “Troisième caverne” of Goyet (Belgium) has yielded the broadest set of Neandertal remains in North-Western Europe and is associated with a rich and diverse large mammal assemblage. We reconstructed the dietary ecology at the site using stable isotope tracking (δ13C and δ15N) of bone collagen. The δ13C and δ15N values of all species are consistent with those observed in other “mammoth steppe” sites. The relative contribution of potential prey species to the diet of carnivores (including Neandertals) was evaluated using a Bayesian model. The distribution of individuals from herbivorous species and carnivorous ones was determined through cluster analysis in order to identify ecological niches, regardless of the individual species attribution. The Neandertals within the predator guild and the mammoth and reindeer as representatives of the herbivores occupied the most specific and most narrow ecological niches. The “Troisième caverne” of Goyet can be regarded as a key site for the investigation of Late Pleistocene Neandertal ecology north of the Alps.
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Ritual'nyj kompleks s prednamerennym pogrebeniem volka iz Bajkal'skoj Sibiri (Ritual complex with a deliberate wolf burial in Baikal Siberia).
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Intra-specific morphological variability in thecave bear Ursus spelaeus (Mammalia, Carnivora,Ursidae) from the Trou du Sureau (Montaiglecaves, Belgium) using an outline analysis
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Palaeoenvironmental and chronological investigations of the Magdalenian sites of GoyetCave and Trou de Chaleux (Belgium), via stable isotope and radiocarbon analyses of horse skeletal remains
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Reply to Bocherens: Dental microwear and stable isotopes on bone collagen are complementary to sort out cave bear diets
- Based on a dental microwear analysis, we demonstrated that cave bears from Goyet, Belgium, were generalist omnivores before dormancy (1). Bocherens (2) states that this interpretation may have been biased by the taxonomic composition of our comparative database, specifically by the absence of brown and black bears. First, the statement that these extant bears have a diet composed of grass, nuts, berries, and underground plant parts (2) provides an incomplete picture of the dietary ecology of bears. Actually, as expected for omnivores, diets of extant brown and black bears may be much more diverse, ranging from carnivory to herbivory depending on a great number of parameters (e.g., refs. 1, 3–5). Second, we do not believe that the addition of these extant species in our database would have altered our conclusions. It has been demonstrated that the differences in dental microwear pattern between extant species of carnivores do not reflect phylogenetic relationships, but feeding habits (6). Our database therefore aimed to cover all diets known in carnivoran mammals, which was more pertinent than completely covering one family only, e.g., Ursidae. Third, isotopic data mentioned by Bocherens (2) do not contradict our results. Isotopic studies provide an average diet over several years to a lifetime, whereas dental microwear analysis provides a perspective on seasonal variation in cave bear diet, e.g., the predormancy period (1). This finding indicates that studies only based on multiple approaches (morphology, geochemistry, dental microwear analysis) may provide a rather complete knowledge of the biology of an extinct species.
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Possible evidence of mammoth hunting during the Epigravettian at Yudinovo, Russian Plain
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Intraspecific phylogenetic analysis of Siberian woolly mammoths using complete mitochondrial genomes
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Nitrogen isotope analyses of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus), 45,000BP to 9,000BP: Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions
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Isotopic biogeochemistry and the evolution of cave bear ecology during Marine Oxygen Isotopic Stage 3 in Western and Central Europe
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Ancient DNA reveals lack of postglacial habitat tracking in the arctic fox
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Fossil bear bones in the Belgian Upper Palaeolithic: the possibility of a proto-bear ceremonialism
