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Mastering the difficulties presented by the peculiarities of island life. A commentary on: ‘Reconstruction of the spatio-temporal diversification and ecological niche evolution of Helianthemum (Cistaceae) in the Canary Islands using genotyping-by-sequence data’
Get PDFThis article comments on: Rafael G. Albaladejo, Sara Martín-Hernanz, J. Alfredo Reyes-Betancort, Arnoldo Santos-Guerra, María Olangua-Corral and Abelardo Aparicio Reconstruction of the spatio-temporal diversification and ecological niche evolution of Helianthemum (Cistaceae) in the Canary Islands using genotyping-by-sequencing data, Annals of Botany, Volume 127, Issue 5, 16 April 2021, Pages 597–611, https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcaa090Copyright © 2021, © The Author(s) 2021. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Annals of Botany Company. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
A multi-model approach to the spatial and temporal characterization of the African Humid Period
No full textDuring the last c. 20,000 years, African climates experienced temperature shifts related to the last period of global deglaciation and moisture availability changes that defined what has become known as the African Humid Period (AHP) c. 14,800–5500 years ago. However, spatio-temporal variations in climate, and the mechanisms behind them, across Africa remain poorly defined and debated. Here, we first characterize climatic change across tropical Africa (15°N to 15°S) over the last c. 20,000 years based on two independent site-specific modelling approaches at nine locations, using: (i) probability-based reconstructions based on pollen data from nine previously published pollen records, and (ii) climate simulation-based reconstructions based on mechanistic models of the Earth system. Trends in past climate change per site were found to be similar between the two modelling approaches; however, estimates of precipitation were higher in the pollen-based reconstructions when compared with those from the mechanistic model. Given the overall similarity between the two modelling approaches at the sites, we then used the mechanistic model to produce maps of past climate across Africa at 1000-year time slices. Interrogation of the model supports previous suggestions that the AHP in the west was driven by increasing precipitation (c. 13,000 years ago). In the eastern and southern portions of the study region, the AHP signal is more complex, likely driven by the interplay between different climate mechanisms; with the onset of the wettest AHP conditions in eastern Africa not commencing until c. 9000 years ago.Copyright © 2025 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
New insights into the Devonian sea spiders of the Hunsrück Slate (Arthropoda: Pycnogonida)
Get PDFBackground
The sea spiders (Pycnogonida Latreille, 1810) of the Hunsrück Slate (Lower Devonian, ~400 million years ago) are iconic in their abundance, exquisite pyritic preservation, and in their distinctive body plan compared to extant sea spiders (Pantopoda Gerstäcker, 1863). Consequently, the Hunsrück sea spiders are important in understanding the deep evolutionary history of Pycnogonida, yet they remain poorly characterised, impacting upon attempts to establish a time-calibrated phylogeny of sea spiders.
Methods
Here, we investigated previously described and new material representing four of the five Hunsrück pycnogonids: Flagellopantopus blocki Poschmann & Dunlop, 2006; Palaeoisopus problematicus Broili, 1928; Palaeopantopus maucheri Broili, 1929; and Pentapantopus vogteli Kühl, Poschmann & Rust, 2013; as well as a few unidentified specimens. Using X-ray microtomography and Reflectance Transformation Imaging, we describe new fossils, provide evidence for newly revealed anatomical features, and interpret these data in comparison to extant species. We also reinterpret the previously published illustration of the (probably lost) holotype of Palaeothea devonica Bergström, Stürmer & Winter, 1980.
Results
We provide the first detailed description of the cephalic appendages of Palaeoisopus problematicus and revise the interpretation of the organisation of its ocular tubercle. Furthermore, we provide new insights into the structure of the legs and the proboscis of Palaeopantopus maucheri, the first description of the body of Flagellopantopus blocki and describe a new specimen of Pentapantopus vogteli, demonstrating that it had eight legs, in contrast to previous interpretations. We argue that, contrary to previous suggestions, Palaeothea devonica probably had a different body plan from extant pantopods. We discuss the ecological traits of the Hunsrück pycnogonids based on their morphological adaptations, and conclude that there is no compelling evidence of Pantopoda in the Devonian. Through comparative interpretation of the legs as well as general morphology, we can divide the Hunsrück pycnogonids into two morphological groups, while Pantopoda constitutes a third morphological group.Copyright © 2024 Sabroux et al. Distributed under Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
90,000 year-old specialised bone technology in the Aterian Middle Stone Age of North Africa
Get PDFThe question of cognitive complexity in early Homo sapiens in North Africa is intimately tied to the emergence of the Aterian culture (~145 ka). One of the diagnostic indicators of cognitive complexity is the presence of specialised bone tools, however significant uncertainty remains over the manufacture and use of these artefacts within the Aterian techno-complex. In this paper we report on a bone artefact from Aterian Middle Stone Age (MSA) deposits in Dar es-Soltan 1 cave on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. It comes from a layer that can be securely dated to ~90 ka. The typological characteristics of this tool, which suggest its manufacture and use as a bone knife, are comparatively similar to other bone artefacts from dated Aterian levels at the nearby site of El Mnasra and significantly different from any other African MSA bone technology. The new find from Dar es-Soltan 1 cave combined with those from El Mnasra suggest the development of a bone technology unique to the Aterian.Copyright: © 2018 Bouzouggar et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Evolution of sexual size dimorphism in tetrapods is driven by varying patterns of sex-specific selection on size
No full textAbstract - Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) is highly prevalent in nature. Several hypotheses aim to explain its evolution including sexual selection, differential equilibrium and ecological niche divergence. Disentangling the causal mechanism behind the evolution of SSD is challenging, as selection arising from multiple pressures on fitness may act simultaneously to generate observed patterns. Here, we use phylogenetic comparative methods to study the evolution of SSD across tetrapods globally. We estimate directional changes in body size evolution, and compare the number, phylogenetic position and magnitude of size changes between sexes. We find evidence that directional changes in size associated with SSD are typically more common in males—even in lineages where females are larger. However, underlying mechanisms differ among lineages—whereas SSD in amphibians becomes more male-biased with greater increases in male size and mammalian SSD becomes more female-biased with greater decreases in male size. Thus, differing mechanisms of directional body size evolution across sexes are essential to explain observed SSD patterns.Copyright © The Author(s) 2024, corrected publication 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate
if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Leveraging natural history collections to understand the impacts of global change
No full textThis joint Special Feature focuses on the contributions and potential of natural history collections to address global change questions.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2023 British Ecological Society. The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Catalysts for change: Museum gardens in a planetary emergency
No full textSocietal Impact Statement
Natural history museums are often seen as places with indoor galleries full of dry‐dusty specimens, usually of animals. But if they have gardens associated with them, museums can use living plants to create narratives that link outside spaces to inside galleries, bringing to life the challenges facing biodiversity. We describe the redevelopment of the grounds of the Natural History Museum in London to create a garden with plants at its centre to address these challenges. People are key to the future of our planet and reaching them in novel ways will be central to creating advocates for the planet.
Summary: The South Kensington site of the Natural History Museum in London is framed by two hectares of grounds that have had a variety of uses since the opening of the buildings in 1881. Original plans for their development were never carried out, and most of the site was planted in amenity grassland, although a small Wildlife Garden was established in the 1990s. Redevelopment of the grounds through the Urban Nature Project has allowed using the space to create new narratives of evolution and individual action, with plants central to the design. With more than 6 million visitors a year, the Museum has a unique opportunity to use its gardens to place nature at the forefront of the visitor experience. Here, we describe the background to this redevelopment and the resultant spaces created, and highlight the opportunities for museums to develop outdoor spaces into new areas for both visitor experience and scientific research.Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Plants, People, Planet published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of New Phytologist Foundation. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited. The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Open letter: A global call to strengthen national soil biodiversity action through coordination and harmonization
Get PDFSoil biodiversity remains one of the least systematically studied components of global biodiversity, largely invisible in policy agendas. A coordinated soil biodiversity monitoring approach is urgently needed to enable national‐level action.Copyright © 2025 The Author(s). Plants, People, Planet published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of New Phytologist Foundation.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made. The attached file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Pollinator-flower interactions in gardens during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown of 2020
No full textDuring the main COVID-19 global pandemic lockdown period of 2020 an impromptu set of pollination ecologists came together via social media and personal contacts to carry out standardised surveys of the flower visits and plants in gardens. The surveys involved 67 rural, suburban and urban gardens, of various sizes, ranging from 61.18° North in Norway to 37.96° South in Australia, resulting in a data set of 25,174 rows, with each row being a unique interaction record for that date/site/plant species, and comprising almost 47,000 visits to flowers, as well as records of flowers that were not visited by pollinators, for over 1,000 species and varieties belonging to more than 460 genera and 96 plant families. The more than 650 species of flower visitors belong to 12 orders of invertebrates and four of vertebrates. In this first publication from the project, we present a brief description of the data and make it freely available for any researchers to use in the future, the only restriction being that they cite this paper in the first instance. The data generated from these global surveys will provide scientific evidence to help us understand the role that private gardens (in urban, rural and suburban areas) can play in conserving insect pollinators and identify management actions to enhance their potential.Copyright (c) 2022 Jeff Ollerton, Judith Trunschke, Kayri Havens, Patricia Landaverde-González, Alexander Keller, Amy-Marie Gilpin, André Rodrigo Rech, Gudryan J. Baronio, Benjamin J. Phillips, Chris Mackin, Dara A. Stanley, Erin Treanore, Ellen Baker, Ellen L. Rotheray, Emily Erickson, Felix Fornoff, Francis Q. Brearley, Gavin Ballantyne, Graziella Iossa, Graham N. Stone, Ignasi Bartomeus, Jenni A. Stockan, Johana Leguizamón, Kit Prendergast, Lisa Rowley, Manuela Giovanetti, Raquel de Oliveira Bueno, Renate A. Wesselingh, Rachel Mallinger, Sally Edmondson, Scarlett R. Howard, Sara D. Leonhardt, Sandra V. Rojas-Nossa, Maisie Brett, Tatiana Joaqui, Reuber Antoniazzi, Victoria J. Burton, Hui-Hui Feng, Zhi-Xi Tian, Qi Xu, Chuan Zhang, Chang-Li Shi, Shuang-Quan Huang, Lorna J. Cole, Leila Bendifallah, Emilie E. Ellis, Stein Joar Hegland, Sara Straffon Díaz, Tonya Allen Lander, Antonia V. Mayr, Richard Dawson, Maxime Eeraerts, W. Scott Armbruster, Becky Walton, Noureddine Adjlane, Steven Falk, Luis Mata, Anya Goncalves Geiger, Claire Carvell, Claire Wallace, Fabrizia Ratto, Marta Barberis, Fay Kahane, Stuart Connop, Anthonie Stip, Maria Rosangela Sigrist, Nicolas J. Vereecken, Alexandra-Maria Klein, Katherine Baldock, Sarah E. J. Arnold
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
The linked file is the published version of the article.NHM Repositor
Joseph Charles Hippolyte Crosse (1826-1898) 2, contact network and selected correspondence from France, Germany and Spain
No full textCopyright © Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the authors, 2023. The attached file is the published version of the book. This document is password protected. Password: Crosse2023NHM Repositor