Search publications of the members of the Royal Belgian institute of natural Sciences
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Learning from ancient water management: Archaeology's role in modern-day climate change adaptations
- Climate change is altering our environment and societies worldwide have to devise adaptation strategies. Water management strategies are becoming especially important. In the past, societies had to adapt in order to survive as well. Communities often practised long‐term sustainable agriculture. By understanding the ways in which ancient communities were successful at or failed in attaining social‐ecological resilience through water management archeologists can provide important information for modern communities facing similar problems. Archeology's long time perspective is very valuable. However, archeologists are confronted with a number of issues. Archeology can only study the material remains of past societies, not the living communities. Not all human activity translates into material residue and not all materials survive. Moreover, people will not demonstrate completely rational cause‐and‐effect behavior, but ideology and beliefs, which archeology can only poorly attest, will also have influenced decisions. Nevertheless, archeology can bring a unique perspective to the debate on climate change adaptation: archeology can falsify or corroborate sustainability claims, ancient water management techniques may still be a resilient mode of subsistence and ancient techniques often rely on relatively simple technology allowing for easier adoption. When transposing ancient water management techniques to modern situations it is important to involve stakeholders from an early stage, to incorporate traditional knowledge systems as much as possible and most importantly to ascertain whether physical and socio‐cultural circumstances are comparable. Archeological knowledge on ancient sustainability and water management is not a panacea for all climate related aridification, but can contribute a unique longue durée perspective.
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Late Miocene survival of a hyper-longirostrine dolphin and the Neogene to Recent evolution of rostrum proportions among odontocetes
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Monkeypox viruses circulate in distantly-related small mammal species in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
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Biodiversity changes in African forests and the emergence of infectious diseases: Should we worry?
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Uncovering the diversity and evolutionary histories of viruses from archived specimens from the Afrotropics
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Diversity of rodents and their viruses from pristine to degraded habitat in DR Congo
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Molecular barcoding capacities for a sharper picture of wildmeat consumption in Central Africa
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Biodiversity and seasonal abundance of ticks (Ixodina) parasitizing domestic pigs slaughtered at the IAT (Kisangani, DRC)
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Evolution de l'exploitation des gibiers-mammifères à Kisangani de 1975 à 2018
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Vers un inventaire des écureuils arboricoles, porteurs de Monkeypox en RD Congo
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Diversité et abondance des chauvessouris (Chiroptera) de la région de Banalia, province de la Tshopo, R.D. Congo
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Molecular identification of an invasive Sarotherodon species from the Atchakpa freshwater reservoir (Ouémé River Basin, Benin) and comparison with S. melanotheron using COI markers
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CEBioS capacity building programma in the Congo Basin
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The scientific legacy of Eugène Henri Joseph Leloup (1902–1981)
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Proceedings of the 15th International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaeta
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15th International Symposium on Aquatic Oligochaeta
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Arthropod community structure as a tool to assess land use effects on soil physiochemical parameters
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Influence of Ant-grass association on soil microbial activity : an assessment of organic matter decomposition dynamics in a savanna ecosystem (Lamto, Côte d'Ivoire).
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A preliminary checklist of ants from Rwanda (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)
- The main purpose of this study was to develop a preliminary checklist of ants known from Rwanda. Notes about repositories are provided for each species record, and ants that are likely to be endemic to Rwanda were identified. Results showed that ants were collected in different areas of Rwanda. Known ant species from the country comprised 6 subfamilies, 26 genera and 71 species, dominated by the subfamily Myrmicinae, Ponerinae, and Formicinae. Among the 71 ant species, 10 are at present considered endemic to Rwanda. This checklist will serve as a baseline survey for future research. We recommend further studies including new field data collections to validate and update this preliminary checklist.
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Evaluating efficiency of different sampling methods for arboreal ants (Hymenoptera; Formicidae) in a West-Afrikan forest-savanna mosaic.
