Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Bioturbation des alluvions modernes de la grotte de Han
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A Barcoding Facility for Organisms and Tissues of Policy Concern
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Pytho depressus (Linnaeus, 1767): A rare and sporadically distributed beetle in Belgium (Coleoptera: Pythidae)
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Two new millipede species of the genus Coxobolellus Pimvichai, Enghoff, Panha & Backeljau, 2020 (Diplopoda, Spirobolida, Pseudospirobolellidae)
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A new species of Calvisia (Calvisia) from Thailand and Myanmar and notes on C. (Calvisia) sangarius from Peninsular Malaysia (Phasmida, Lonchodidae, Necrosciinae)
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A new species of the genus Ocinebrina Jousseaume, 1880: Ocinebrina azorensis n. sp. (Neogastropoda: Muricidae)
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New records and extension of the geographical distribution of Homalocantha oxyacantha (Broderip, 1833) (Gastropoda: Muricidae)
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New species of Cerithiopsidae H. Adams & A. Adams, 1853 (Mollusca, Gastropoda, Caenogastropoda) from Ascension Island
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1001 décision, gouvernance et gestion - 1001 besslissignen, beleid en politiek
- Messages vidéos des ministres responsables de la biodiversité en Belgique à l'occasion de l'anniversaire des 20 ans de la Convention sur la Diversité Biologique (CBD) en Belgique et de la conférence 1001 décisions organisée le 19 mai 2016 à l'IRSNB Série de 10 vidéos des ministres publiée sur le channel Youtube "1001 for Biodiversity"
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Journée biodiversité 2016 - Biodiversiteitsdag 2016
- Série de 7 vidéos des temps forts de la journée de la biodiversité et du débat avec les jeunes des partis politiques publiées sur le channel Youtube "1001 for Biodiversity" 150 personnes ont assisté a cet événement animé par Sara De Paduwa (RTBF) et Han Renard (Knack) rehaussé par la présence des ministres. 10 jeunes de partis politiques différents ont participé au débat modéré par Eddy Caekelberghs (RTBF) à l'occasion de l'anniversaire des 20 ans de la Convention sur la Diversité Biologique (CBD) en Belgique et de la conférence 1001 décisions organisée le 20 mai 2016 à l'IRSNB Liste des vidéos: Welkomstwoord - Mot de bienvenue (Camille Pisani) Le ministre Collin sur la biodiversité en Wallonie Biodiversiteitsplannen van jonge politici (1+2) - Aspirations biodiversité de jeunes politiciens (1+2) Het Biodiversiteitsverdrag in België - La Convention biodiversité en Belgique (Jackie Van Goethem et Simon Hemptinne) Belgische politieke samenwerking rond biodiversiteit - La politique belge concernant la biodiversité (Roland Moreau) Infostands & rondleidingen - Stands d'information & visites guidées
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Biodiversity 2020 – Update of Belgium’s National Biodiversity Strategy
- The updated Strategy in a nutshell Biodiversity has many dimensions, and the importance of these has still not been adequately addressed. It provides, among other things, resources including all our food and many medicines and other life support products. Biodiversity underpins human well-being through the provision of ecological services that are, for instance, essential for nutrient cycling, soil fertility and fruit-tree pollination as well as clean, fresh water and air. It also provides a wide range of recreational opportunities and it is an inexhaustible resource for learning, education, inspiration and cultural identity. Biodiversity conservation is therefore a common concern for all of humankind. In Belgium, environmental matters including nature conservation are essentially matters of Regional competence. The Federal level is competent for environmental matters in the marine areas under Belgian jurisdiction, military domains and railway embankments, it has specific environmental competences (CITES, trade of non-indigenous species, product standards) and other competences related to the environment and biodiversity (development cooperation, finance, economy, etc.) at its disposal as well as action levers (public procurements, taxation, etc.). The Strategy is the Belgian answer to the formal obligation under the CBD and also takes the other commitments made at European and international level into account. It offers a framework for policymaking and further development of actions. It includes the existing Regional and Federal frameworks and action plans and it supports their integration and fine-tuning. It aims at giving strategic political orientations in order to allow actors for biodiversity in Belgium to work in partnership to contribute nationally and internationally towards the achievement of the target of halting the loss of biodiversity by 2020. This will be achieved by ensuring a more effective and coherent implementation of the three objectives of the Convention on Biological Diversity, while also taking into account the other biodiversity agreements where relevant. The Strategy pays particular attention to creating more coherence and filling the gaps in existing Belgian instruments and optimising integration of biodiversity concern at national and international level. The Strategy has a vision and a general objective that are in line with the CBD Strategic Plan and the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020: Vision: “By 2050, our Biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides - our natural capital - are valued, conserved, appropriately restored and wisely used for their intrinsic value and for their essential contribution to human well-being and economic prosperity, so that catastrophic changes caused by the loss of biodiversity are avoided”. General objective: “Contribute nationally and internationally to the achievement of the 2020 target of halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services, and restoring them insofar as feasible, while stepping up our contribution to averting global biodiversity loss”. The strategy spells out a range of 15 priority strategic objectives (objective 14 is new) and 85 operational objectives (eight of them are new) to guide the development of actions by the competent regional and federal authorities. Following the recommendations to update the NBS, the content of the chapter on implementation and follow-up of the NBS and some other parts have been somewhat adapted to fully reflect the commitments to meet the CBD Aichi targets and the new EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020 (see appendix 4 - Concordance of the Aichi Targets with the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2020 and with the updated NBS). The text of the NBS clearly identifies, for each objective, the link with articles of the CBD, the relevant Aichi Target, thematic programmes of work, guidelines, etc. adopted under the Convention as well as the relevant EU commitment. Its main focus is on sectoral integration of Biodiversity. Where necessary, implementation measures are taken in a coordinated way by the Federal and Regional Governments and the other relevant actors. Examples of achievements until 2009 are published in the fourth national report to the CBD (2009) and in the mid-term assessment of the NBS (2012). The updated strategy is established for an eight-year period (2013-2020). No specific actions or indicators are adopted in the Strategy itself but they will be adopted and developed at a later stage in the implementation process, in consultation with all the actors for biodiversity in Belgium. Reporting on the progress made and on the obstacles to implementing the NBS takes place through the national reporting procedure for the CBD (2014, 2019). The information on implementation of the NBS is also published on the website of the Belgian Clearing-House Mechanism. Many different actors have an active role to play in the implementation of the Strategy: ministries and administrations, advisory and consultative bodies, research institutes, NGOs, information centres, individuals and community groups, etc. Several actions will have to be performed simultaneously in different sectors and - after further consultation and coordination - on several administrative levels.
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Annelids in Extreme Aquatic Environments: Diversity, Adaptations and Evolution
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Four new West Palaearctic species and new distributional records of Hybotidae (Diptera)
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A new species of the genus Psalidosphryon Komiya, 2001 from West Papua, Indonesia (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae)
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Reconstructing the nonadaptive radiation of an ancient lineage of ground-dwelling stick insects (Phasmatodea: Heteropterygidae)
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The 10,000-year biocultural history of fallow deer and its implications for conservation policy
- Over the last 10,000 y, humans have manipulated fallow deer populations with varying outcomes. Persian fallow deer (Dama mesopotamica) are now endangered. European fallow deer (Dama dama) are globally widespread and are simultaneously considered wild, domestic, endangered, invasive and are even the national animal of Barbuda and Antigua. Despite their close association with people, there is no consensus regarding their natural ranges or the timing and circumstances of their human-mediated translocations and extirpations. Our mitochondrial analyses of modern and archaeological specimens revealed two distinct clades of European fallow deer present in Anatolia and the Balkans. Zooarchaeological evidence suggests these regions were their sole glacial refugia. By combining biomolecular analyses with archaeological and textual evidence, we chart the declining distribution of Persian fallow deer and demonstrate that humans repeatedly translocated European fallow deer, sourced from the most geographically distant populations. Deer taken to Neolithic Chios and Rhodes derived not from nearby Anatolia, but from the Balkans. Though fallow deer were translocated throughout the Mediterranean as part of their association with the Greco-Roman goddesses Artemis and Diana, deer taken to Roman Mallorca were not locally available Dama dama, but Dama mesopotamica. Romans also initially introduced fallow deer to Northern Europe but the species became extinct and was reintroduced in the medieval period, this time from Anatolia. European colonial powers then transported deer populations across the globe. The biocultural histories of fallow deer challenge preconceptions about the divisions between wild and domestic species and provide information that should underpin modern management strategies.
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Fish remains from Cubalel and Siwre
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Virtual reconstruction of the skull of Bernissartia fagesii and current understanding of the neosuchian–eusuchian transition
- Since the description of Isisfordia duncani, a number of new extinct species and revisions of previously described species have prompted a variety of contradicting phylogenetic hypotheses on the topology of Neosuchia. As a consequence, a consensus on the rooting of Eusuchia in relation to other neosuchian clades has not been reached and the origin of the group remains unsettled. Exemplifying this, Bernissartia fagesii, from the Early Cretaceous of Belgium, has long been considered a key taxon for understanding the origin of Eusuchia, but more recent hypotheses found support for a more basal position, as an ally to goniopholidids, paralligatorids or atoposaurids. Because many details of the anatomy of the type specimen are hidden by glue and the sediment adhering to the fossils, a number of characters are pending confirmation. Based on computed tomography data, we extract bones of the cranium and mandibles, describe new characters and re-evaluate anatomical details in the lectotype specimen. Our phylogenetic analysis confirms that B. fagesii is a derived neosuchian, unrelated to atoposaurids, goniopholidids and paralligatorids. We recover B. fagesii and Koumpiodontosuchus aprosdokiti in a basal position within Eusuchia, together with Susisuchidae, a group of gondwanan neosuchians containing Susisuchus and Isisfordia, which here form a polytomy with Hylaeochampsidae. The presence/absence of pterygoid-bound internal choanae cannot be used to fully resolve relationships at the neosuchian–eusuchian transition because of the variability of this character even at the familial level, as recently reported within susisuchids and bernissartiids. There is no doubt that true eusuchians were present in Laurasia as early as the Early Cretaceous, the hylaeochampsid Hylaeochampsa vectiana being the oldest (Barremian) undoubted representative. But whether the Eusuchia were also present in southern landmasses depends on solving the phylogenetic position of susisuchids and other less known gondwanan forms within or outside Eusuchia.
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Reply to comments on “A well-preserved pelvis from the Maastrichtian of Romania suggests that the enigmatic Gargantuavis is neither an ornithurine bird nor an insular endemic”
- We appreciate the comments of Buffetaut and Angst on our recent study of a Gargantuavis-like pelvis from the Late Cretaceous of Romania. We consider some of their points to be valid, but maintain our conclusion on the likely absence of a glycogen body in Gargantuavis and the lack of fusion of the pelvic elements in the acetabular region. Both characters conflict with a classification of the taxon into Ornithurae. We also uphold our hypothesis that Gargantuavis is possibly related to the enigmatic theropod Balaur bondoc.
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Repeated morphological diversification in endemic Antarctic fishes of the genus Trematomus
- The iterative nature of ecomorphological diversification is observed in various groups of animals. However, studies explicitly testing the consistency of morphological variation across and within species are scarce. Antarctic notothenioids represent a textbook example of adaptive radiation in marine fishes. Within Nototheniidae, the endemic Antarctic genus Trematomus consists of 15 extant species, some with documented large intraspecific variability. Here, we quantify head shape disparity in 11 species of Trematomus by landmark-based geometric morphometrics, and we illustrate repeated events of divergence and convergence of their head morphology. Taking advantage of the polymorphism observed in some species of Trematomus, we also show that two closely related species or clades (e.g., Trematomus bernacchii and T. hansoni) are characterised by the same level of morphological disparity as observed at the level of the entire genus. Interestingly, the same main axes of shape variation are shared between and within species, indicating repeated morphological diversification. Overall, we illustrate a similarity of intra- and interspecific patterns of phenotypic diversity providing new insights into the mechanisms that underlie the diversification of Antarctic fishes.
