Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Fossiele katachtigen
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Origins and genetic legacy of prehistoric dogs
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Phylogenomics of Psammodynastes and Buhoma (Elapoidea: Serpentes), with the description of a new Asian snake family
- Asian mock vipers of the genus Psammodynastes and African forest snakes of the genus Buhoma are two genera belonging to the snake superfamily Elapoidea. The phylogenetic placements of Psammodynastes and Buhoma within Elapoidea has been extremely unstable which has resulted in their uncertain and debated taxonomy. We used ultraconserved elements and traditional nuclear and mitochondrial markers to infer the phylogenetic relationships of these two genera with other elapoids. Psammodynastes, for which a reference genome has been sequenced, were found, with strong branch support, to be a relatively early diverging split within Elapoidea that is sister to a clade consisting of Elapidae, Micrelapidae and Lamprophiidae. Hence, we allocate Psammodynastes to its own family, Psammodynastidae new family. However, the phylogenetic position of Buhoma could not be resolved with a high degree of confidence. Attempts to identify the possible sources of conflict in the rapid radiation of elapoid snakes suggest that both hybridisation/introgression during the rapid diversification, including possible ghost introgression, as well as incomplete lineage sorting likely have had a confounding role. The usual practice of combining mitochondrial loci with nuclear genomic data appears to mislead phylogeny reconstructions in rapid radiation scenarios, especially in the absence of genome scale data.
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Palaeogenomic analysis of black rat (Rattus rattus) reveals multiple European introductions associated with human economic history
- The distribution of the black rat (Rattus rattus) has been heavily influenced by its association with humans. The dispersal history of this non-native commensal rodent across Europe, however, remains poorly understood, and different introductions may have occurred during the Roman and medieval periods. Here, in order to reconstruct the population history of European black rats, we first generate a de novo genome assembly of the black rat. We then sequence 67 ancient and three modern black rat mitogenomes, and 36 ancient and three modern nuclear genomes from archaeological sites spanning the 1st-17th centuries CE in Europe and North Africa. Analyses of our newly reported sequences, together with published mitochondrial DNA sequences, confirm that black rats were introduced into the Mediterranean and Europe from Southwest Asia. Genomic analyses of the ancient rats reveal a population turnover in temperate Europe between the 6th and 10th centuries CE, coincident with an archaeologically attested decline in the black rat population. The near disappearance and re-emergence of black rats in Europe may have been the result of the breakdown of the Roman Empire, the First Plague Pandemic, and/or post-Roman climatic cooling.
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Data services in ocean science with a focus on the biology
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Namur/Namur : dernières interventions archéologiques au Grognon, lors de la construction du parking.
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Sedimentology, conodonts and ostracods of the Devonian-Carboniferous strata of the Anseremme railway bridge section, Dinant Basin, Belgium.
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The mode of life of Devonian entomozoacean ostracods and the Myodocopid Mega-Assemblage proxy for hypoxic events.
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Ostracods and lithofacies close to the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary in the Chanxhe and Rivage sections, northeastern part of the Dinant Basin, Belgium.
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Ostracods and lithofacies close to the Eifelian-Givetian boundary (Devonian) at Aisemont (Namur Synclinorium, Belgium).
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Ostracods and facies of the Early and Middle Frasnian at Devils Gate in Nevada : Relationship to the Alamo Event
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Crinoid and ostracod succession within the early-Middle Frasnian interval in the Wietrznia quarry, Holy Cross Mountains
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Ostracods and lithofacies of the Middle/Upper Devonian boundary stratotype (Puech de la Suque, Montagne Noire, France).
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Middle Frasnian (Devonian) ostracods from the Frasnes railway section (Dinant Synclinorium, Belgium); taxonomy, biostratigraphy, paleoecology.
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Early Frasnian ostracods from the Arche quarry (Dinant Synclinorium, Belgium) and the Palmatolepis punctata Isotopic Event
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Late Givetian to Middle Frasnian ostracods from Nismes (Dinant Synclinorium, Belgium) and their lithological context
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Devonian ostracodes from Devils Gate (Eureka, Nevada)
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Comments on the Devonian/Carboniferous and Frasnian/Famennian boundary stratotype sections (La Serre and Coumiac, Montagne Noire, France)
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Ostracodes du Dévonien moyen et supérieur du Tafilalt (Maroc)
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Euxinic ocean during the Late Devonian mass extinction inferred from organic compounds
