Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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The in situ Glyptostroboxylon forest of Hoegaarden (Belgium) at the Initial Eocene Thermal Maximum (55 Ma)
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Oldest Plesiadapiform (Mammalia, Proprimates) from Asia and its palaeobiogeographical implications for faunal interchange with North America
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Mesozoic mammals and early mammalian brain diversity
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Paleocene-Eocene carbon isoltope excursion in organic carbon and pedogenic carbonate: direct comparision in a continental stratigraphic section
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Les mammifères de l'Ypresien moyen du Bassin de Paris (niveau-repère MP8-9) sont-ils présents dès la limite Paléocène/Eocène de Dormaal (niveau-repère MP7, Belgique)?
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Anatomy and phylogeny of the gavialoid crocodylian Eosuchus lerichei from the Paleocene of Europe
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A new scincomorph lizard from the Paleocene of Belgium and the origin of the Scincoidea in Europe
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Dental and tarsal morphology of the European Paleocene/Eocene "condylarth" mammal Microhyus
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Early Eocene (Ypresian) continental vertebrate assemblage from India, with description of a new anthracobunid (Mammalia, Tethytheria)
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Asian gliriform origin for arctostilopid mammals
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Rapid Asia–Europe–North America geographic dispersal of earliest Eocene primate Teilhardina during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum
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The acme of the micromammal Paschatherium across the Paleocene-Eocene boundary in continental Europe
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Woodland in a f luvio-lacustrine environment on the dry Mongolian Plateau during the late Paleocene: Evidence from the mammal bearing Subeng section (Inner Mongolia, P.R. China)
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Paleocene-Eocene land mammals from three new latest Clarkforkian and earliest Wasatchian wash sites at Polecat Bench in the Northern Basin, Wyoming
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Temporal constraints and depositional palaeoenvironments of the Vastan Lignite Sequence, Gujarat: Analogy for the Cambay shale hydrocarbon source rock
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High-resolution carbon isotope stratigraphy and mammalian faunal change at the Paleocene-Eocene boundary in the Honeycombs area of the Southern Bighorn Basin, Wyoming.
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Oldest fossil avian remains from the Indian subcontinental plate
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A first analysis on the relationship between forest soil quality and spider (Araneae) communities of Flemish forest stands
- A project aiming at the development of a practical bio-indication system for evaluating forest soil duality was recently started up. The project is funded by the Flemish Forestry Administration responsible for the protected Flemish forests and is managed by the Institute for Forestry and Game Management (IBW). In the project the arthropod fauna of fifty forest stands distributed all over the Flemish Region was sampled by traps operative from spring 1997 till spring 1998. All these plots were also investigated in relation to the physical and chemical properties of their soil and litter layers. The variation of the composition of the spider communities of these stands is unclear when we compare it with the most important litter and soil parameters, but future investigations with more (structural) parameters will hopefully give a good explanation. On a subregional scale, in forests on the same soil type (loam), spider community composition seems to be determined by humidity and density of tree coverage. Spider species for which abundance correlates with these major environmental factors are candidate bio-indicators to monitor forest soil quality.
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A land snail's view of a fragmented landscape
- Habitat fragmentation may influence the genetic structure of populations, especially of species with low mobility. So far, these effects have been mainly studied by surveying neutral markers, and much less by looking at ecologically relevant characters. Therefore, we aimed to explore eventual patterns of covariation between population structuring in neutral markers and variation in shell morphometrics in the forest-associated snail Discus rotundatus in relation to habitat fragment characteristics. To this end, we screened shell morphometric variability and sequence variation in a fragment of the mitochondrial 16S rDNA gene in D. rotundatus from the fragmented landscape of the Lower Rhine Embayment, Germany. The 16S rDNA of D. rotundatus was highly variable, with a total of 118 haplotypes (384 individuals) forming four clades and one unresolved group. There was a geographic pattern in the distribution of the clades with the river Rhine apparently separating two groups. Yet, at the geographic scale considered, there was no obvious effect of fragmentation on shell morphometrics and 16S rDNA variation because G(ST) often was as high within, as between forests. Instead, the age of the habitat and (re-)afforestation events appeared to affect shell shape and 16S rDNA in terms of the number of clades per site. The ecologically relevant characters thus supported the presumably neutral mitochondrial DNA markers by indicating that populations of not strictly stenecious species may be (relatively) stable in fragments. However, afforestation after large clearcuts and habitat gain after the amendment of deforestation are accompanied by several, seemingly persistent peculiarities, such as altered genetic composition and shell characters (e.g. aperture size). (C) 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2009, 98, 839-850.
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Absence of cadmium excretion and high assimilation result in cadmium biomagnification in a wolf spider
- Cd biomagnification in the terrestrial food chain appears to be dependent on the physiological properties of the organisms rather than on their trophic level. Although high Cd body burdens in spiders from the field have been reported many times, experimental verification of the key factors that determine the rate of cadmium accumulation is lacking. We investigated the cadmium assimilation rate in the common wolf spider Pirata piraticus fed with contaminated fruit flies. Spiders were fed for 42 days with contaminated flies, followed by a detoxicification period of 28 days. Every 14 days, a subsample of spiders and flies was taken for Cd determination. It was demonstrated that a high cadmium assimilation (69.5\%) and an excretion rate approaching zero resulted in high Cd concentration factors. The results indicate the importance of spiders in cadmium biomagnification along critical pathways. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.
