Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Fiches descriptives des Habitats dans le cadre du PLAN D’AMENAGEMENT ET DE GESTION 2024-2034 : PARC NATIONAL DE LA RUSIZI
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Socio-ecological resilience in the programme of SECORES members : 2 years of achievements
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Old concepts in a new semantic perspective: introducing a geotemporal approach to conceptual definitions in geology
- Geological units are the fundamental building blocks that help understand regional geological history and architecture. Classifying these correctly is therefore crucial, as is acknowledging how they relate to each other. This is where traditional definitions fall short, which is increasingly becoming evident with the ongoing effort of setting up advanced knowledge systems that rely on semantic grounding. In exploring the way forward for fundamental improvements, we use the foreland basin and related concepts to introduce a geotemporal conceptual approach of defining geological units with relative limits in time and space. This approach closes the semantic gap between definitions in thesauri and formal instantiation in ontologies.
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Etat de la connaissance sur les feux de végétation en Afrique : Analyse bibliographique et perceptives de recherche.
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EcoHealth reframing of disease monitoring
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GENBAS - Genomic and Behavioural Aspects of Cichlid Speciation
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New Trends in Soil Biology
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Comparaison des communautés d'Oribates de litières de chênaies.
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Synécologie de Taxocénoses d'Oribates du £Sol de quelques Forêts Décidues de Belgique.
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Sustainability impact assessment of deep subsurface use in Flanders
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Frontal sinuses and human evolution
- The frontal sinuses are cavities inside the frontal bone located at the junction between the face and the cranial vault and close to the brain. Despite a long history of study, understanding of their origin and variation through evolution is limited. This work compares most hominin species’ holotypes and other key individuals with extant hominids. It provides a unique and valuable perspective of the variation in sinuses position, shape, and dimensions based on a simple and reproducible methodology. We also observed a covariation between the size and shape of the sinuses and the underlying frontal lobes in hominin species from at least the appearance of Homo erectus. Our results additionally undermine hypotheses stating that hominin frontal sinuses were directly affected by biomechanical constraints resulting from either chewing or adaptation to climate. Last, we demonstrate their substantial potential for discussions of the evolutionary relationships between hominin species. Variation in frontal sinus shape and dimensions has high potential for phylogenetic discussion when studying human evolution.
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Description of a new species belonging to the Aegosomatini tribe (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae)
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Do man-made structures impact the connectivity patterns of hard substrate species in the North Sea?
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On Haplotaxis Ho meister, 1843 (Annelida, Clitellata)
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Telemetry for migratory bats – a feasibility study
- In recent years, research into the occurrence of bats at the Dutch North Sea has shown that there is regular seasonal migration over sea. However, so far, little is known about their migration ecology, the fatality risks at offshore wind turbines, and the number of individuals migrating over sea. Since the Dutch government wants to boost the further development of wind energy production in the southern North Sea, the Ministry of Economic Affairs commissioned to Rijkswaterstaat a Wind at Sea Ecological Programme (in Dutch: Wozep). This study, as part of the Wozep-project Behaviour and Collision Risk of Bats (Bats_2), investigates how telemetry can be applied to gain insight into migratory movements of bats over land and over sea and individual bat behaviour near and in offshore wind farms. To find out whether it is wise to continue and further develop telemetry research in the context of the Wozep programme, we first identified potential telemetry methods for small bats based on a desk study and selected the most promising method for the application of telemetry. Members of the team attended an international workshop on telemetry in Lund (Sweden) to gather practical technical knowledge, gain insight in data-management standards, and increase their international network. Several field tests were conducted to test the equipment and explore the possibilities of tracking. Finally, suitable locations for bat trapping in bat boxes and for the use of a Heligoland trap were identified. There are several options to track bats with radio telemetry during their migration at the coast and over sea. However, for long-term monitoring of multiple individuals, establishing a grid of stationary receivers is the only feasible option. Eight field tests were carried out to test the performance of the technical infrastructure. Each of the tests was unique and set up to test the signal strength/detection range for a certain type of antenna or a certain transmitter/receiver constellation. We showed that detections over at least 6 km are possible, and likely more than 10 km can be achieved. Precondition is that the receiving stations must be installed at high structures (lighthouses, buildings, masts) or hills, installing them a few meters off ground level will lead to detection ranges just over one km. Furthermore we explored the possibilities of calculating movement tracks with a setup of several receivers using different estimation methods. These experiments indicated that a relatively high accuracy (of c. 100 m) can be reached estimating the location when signals of different receiving stations are combined. It is likely that the accuracy can be improved by estimating the bearings of the received signals based on the signal strength of different antennas. Even further improvement seems possible by assessing the (likely) flight route with a state-space model. There are plenty of locations with bat boxes, especially in the province of Noord-Holland, where potentially hundreds of bats can be captured during migration stopovers, though it is not known how many of these are likely to be migrants. In addition, we identified four locations where actively migrating bats can potentially be captured with an Heligoland trap. In conclusion, we are confident that telemetry can be successfully applied to study migratory movements of bats over land and over sea and individual bat behaviour near and in offshore wind farms. Joining a wildlife tracking system like Motus (Canada) in order to enlarge the data collection, is highly recommended. Motus-members can get detections from both
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Spatial and temporal occurrence of bats in the southern North Sea area
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A multidisciplinary analysis of cesspits from late medieval and post-medieval Brussels, Belgium: diet and health in the fourteenth-seventeenth century
- The fill of two late and post-medieval cesspits in Brussels was analyzed using a multidisciplinary approach, including the study of macrobotanical and faunal remains, pollen, and parasite eggs. These show that in the diet plant foods were dominated by cereals while the animal remains document the consumption of mainly fish and birds. The presence of foods that were luxuries at that time would indicate that these were affluent households, although with an admixture of meals related to those of lower socioeconomic status. Seven species of helminth and protozoal parasites were identified, with dominance of those species spread by poor sanitation.
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La pèche à Bruxelles au XVe siècle. Nouvelles données archéologiques
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Progressive increase in organic-matter burial and preservation from the "Weissert" event to the Faraoni event in Umbria-March (Central-Italy)
- 1. Abstract The Cretaceous experienced several Oceanic Anoxic Events (or OAEs). Anoxia in these events is indicated by deposits of black shales, enriched in organic matter (OM) compared to the layers below and above, strong carbon isotope perturbations, often with a negative excursion at the onset of the OAEs followed by a positive excursion, and concentration of redox-sensitive trace-elements (RSTE) (Baudin & Riquier 2014). Considered to be the earliest Cretaceous OAE (Baudin & Riquier, 2014), the Faraoni level is a short event first defined in the late Hauterivian sections of the Umbria-Marche Apennines (Cecca et al. 1994). It presents black shales enriched in OM with high concentrations of RSTE but lacks an important positive δ13C excursion (Baudin & Riquier, 2014). This event follows the “Weissert” event, a ca. 2.3 million year carbon isotope perturbation event taking place during the late Valanginian-early Hauterivian (Sprovieri et al. 2006). This latter event is not considered to be an OAE, as anoxia indicators such as RSTE high concentrations or OM-rich layers are not observed at least in the western Tethys (Westermann et al. 2010). In order to link those two seemingly opposite events, sections of Late Valanginian to Early Barremian age were studied in the Umbria-Marche Apennines, Italy. Lesser magnitude black shale preceding the Faraoni level were identified. They were correlated in two sections using magnetostratigraphy (Fig. 1). Rock-Eval and palynofacies analyses reveal that they are part of a longer-term trend of increased organic matter preservation and burial. In the black shales this is hinted by a progressive increase of total organic carbon (TOC) content, of the hydrogen index (HI), and by increasingly better preserved amorphous organic matter (AOM) towards the Faraoni level (Fig.1). This increase starts in the upper part of the M5n magnetochron. This is coeval with an increase in mercury concentration interpreted to be due to volcanic activity that was measured among others in the Bosso section (Charbonnier et al., 2018). Palaeoenvironmental differences between the Bosso and Frontone sections is shown by differences in palynomorphs and in organic matter preservation, and by the presence of slumps found in Frontone only. Figure 1 : synthetic log of the Bosso and Frontone sections, with magnetostratigraphy and Rock Eval 6 results (TOC and HI) 2. References Baudin, F. & Riquier, L., 2014. The Late Hauterivian Faraoni ‘Oceanic Anoxic Event’: An Update. Bulletin de La Société Géologique de France, 185, 6, 359‑77. Cecca, F., Marini, A., Pallini, G., Baudin, F., & Begouen, V., 1994. A guide level of the uppermost Hauterivian (Lower Cretaceous) in the pelagic succession of Umbria Marches Apennines (Central Italy): the Faraoni level, Rivista Italiana di Paleontologia e Stratigrafia, 99, 4. Sprovieri, M., Coccioni, R., Lirer, F., Pelosi, N. & Lozar F., 2006. Orbital Tuning of a Lower Cretaceous Composite Record (Maiolica Formation, Central Italy). Paleoceanography, 21, 4. Westermann, S., Föllmi, K.B., Adatte, T., Matera, V., Schnyder, J., Fleitmann, D., Fiet, N., Ploch, I. & Duchamp-Alphonse S., 2010. The Valanginian δ13C Excursion May Not Be an Expression of a Global Oceanic Anoxic Event. Earth and Planetary Science Letters, 290, 1‑2, 118‑31. Charbonnier, G., Godet, A., Bodin, S., Adatte, T. & Föllmi, K. B. 2018. Mercury anomalies, volcanic pulses, and drowning episodes along the northern Tethyan margin during the latest Hauterivian-earliest Aptian. Palaeogeography. Palaeoclimatoly. Palaeoecology.
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Using next-generation sequencing to improve DNA barcoding: lessons from a small-scale study of wild bee species (Hymenoptera, Halictidae)
