Finance

The positive trends observed in 2008 were confirmed in 2009. The museum and research activities generated one and a half times more revenue than the grant allocated to the Institute by the federal authorities. Total revenue exceeded €19 M. Taking into account the outstanding items at the end of the year, the balance sheet resulted in a profit of €252 K.

conclusion

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Institute’s development potential is related to its capacity to generate income. Resources from the grant are totally used to cover incompressible salary charges and operational costs: Some 99.58% of the expenditure budget paid from the grant has been used up! The diversity of its revenue is one of the Institute’s specific features and strengths. Maintaining them at their current level whilst controlling structural costs will be one of the challenges for the coming year.

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

1. results

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

1. results

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

1. results

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

1. results

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

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2. research

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

the following examples are only a part of the research work and expertise conducted by the rBins.

A Whale in the Port of Antwerp

on 22nd September 2009, less than three weeks before the opening of the “Whales & Dolphins” temporary exhibition, researchers from the Institute were alerted by an unusual text message: a dead whale is drifting in the Port of Antwerp! Aware that it meant the start of a very long day for these researchers responsible for coordinating and monitoring marine mammals, they set off early, loaded up with all their autopsy equipment.

When they arrived, the animal in question was discovered to be a female common finback whale, whose exact length (19.9 metres) made it the largest animal to have beached on the Belgian coast since the 1970s.

It was soon established that the whale had been hit by the Colombian fruit cargo ship Summer Flower in the Atlantic and had remained caught on the ship’s bows for several days before beaching in the port. This type of accident is unfortunately all too frequent and the threat to the whale population it represents is taken very seriously by the International Whaling Commission, in which Belgium is presiding over the working group that deals with such issues.

With the local and Flemish regional port authorities, the researchers agreed to tow the dead whale to the beach at St-Anneke, 20km further up the estuary, to conduct the autopsy. In spite of the intervention of firemen from the Port of Antwerp and the Civil Defence, the operation was not simple, as the whale weighed over 40 tonnes. After the autopsy, there was then the question of what to do with the skeleton: As the RBINS already had an exceptional collection of cetacean skeletons, it was decided that only the lower jaw (i.e. two mandibles, each 4.85 m long) would be conserved by the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the university of ghent, to form the jewel of its museum in Merelbeke.

Habit Doesn’t Make the Species

The study of biodiversity requires not only the identification and description of organisms, but also the unravelling of their evolutional history, in order to better understand their relations in the living world.

As the point of departure of descriptive taxonomy, the physical appearance of a living being is sometimes deceptive: resemblances and differences do not always correspond to a fundamental resemblance – or difference – with other species in the same group.

Thus, until now researchers thought that with their quite characteristic external appearance, the family of marine worms called Desmoscolecida had a special, unique place in the major phylum (group) of round worms, Nematodes. They have not managed to situate them in the phylogeny of other families of Nematodes, with which they saw no apparent resemblance. By sequencing a small sub-unit of DNA of the ribosome (18S DNAr), researchers from the RBINS working with other researchers from South Korea have managed, for the first time, to establish all the evolutional relationships of Desmoscolecida and thereby precisely situate them in the phylum of Nematodes.

The Dynamics of the galapagos Islands in Detail

lost in the middle of the ocean, the volcanic formations of the galapagos archipelago provide a natural laboratory to study evolution. This archipelago is made up of 16 islands and some forty rock formations, which appeared between 4 and 0.5 million years ago near to the equator, 1.000 km from the South American continent, and is famous above all for its giant tortoises, iguanas and majestic cacti. But the RBINS has acquired a worldwide reputation for its expertise in the ecology of these islands through its study of insects and spiders.

Since 1982, researchers from the entomology Department have studied the invertebrate fauna of these islands, initially focusing on spiders and coleopterans. Their principal objective was to identify the number and nature of species present on the various islands. More than half of the species are endemic to this island formation and often limited to just one island, which is an indicator of how fragile these ecosystems are. Ants, which have been studied more recently, present a different picture: 70% of some 50 species of ants are not indigenous and have been introduced recently by man. A major part of their study is aiming to explore the impact of these introduced species, which are sometimes very invasive.

Accumulated knowledge on invertebrate fauna, enhanced in 2009 by a series of field trips combined with laboratory DNA analyses, have made it possible to reconstruct the history of the evolution of these species and to identify the key factors involved in evolutionary mechanisms without which we would not be able to sustainably protect this sanctuary of biodiversity.

Rising Sea levels Do Not Mean the Total Submersion of land

In the context of climate change, experts and medias are predicting disasters in relation to the rising sea level. But these models and scenarios do not include sedimentological data that describe natural sea level variations. Thus the North Sea coastal plain has been formed since the Holocene (10,000 years ago) by the gradual replacement of peat bogs (freshwater) by marine sediments. Researchers from the Belgian geological Service have begun radiocarbon dating fossilised shells found in the most recent sediments. Combined with previous data, this work has made it possible to reconstruct the evolutionary mechanisms and processes of the coastal region over the past 3 000 years. It appears from this that the sea level has not fluctuated (oscillation between highs and lows) over the past 2,500 years, but has been characterised by a slow, regular rise of approximately 1 to 1.5 mm/year.

In developing countries, there are hardly any sea walls and the low-lying coastal area has always been in its natural state. This means therefore that these regions are going to evolve naturally, that is to say that the accumulation of marine sediment will be able to follow the rate of increase in the sea levels, as it has been the case over the past 6,000 years, as long as a sufficient amount of sediments is provided. geological research has determined that even with an increase in sea level of approximately 2 to 4 m every 1,000 years, a large area of the coastline will continue to develop and there will not be a total submersion of land. This is the case for example in Bangladesh, Vietnam and Java, countries whose coastlines are notably characterised by mangrove vegetation, which forms an excellent trap for sediment.

12.05 11.06

Welcoming of the 600,000^th

The Marine Ecosystem The Belgian Women in visitor since the Museum

Management Department Science (BeWise) was reopened

presented a new map of the association organised a positions of North Sea wind workshop on the subject turbines Women & Evolution

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

H1N1: Wild Ducks under Close Watch

Public opinion worldwide was shocked when scientists announced the outbreak of a new type of flu virus, H1N1. Hardly ever fatal but easily transmissible, this virus surprised researchers owing to its ability to spread across species: ducks, pigs and then humans. These so-called “influenza” viruses are normally specific to the groups of animals in which they develop, and thus infection which takes place among wild animals generally leaves humans unaffected. Whilst the Belgian veterinary authorities were stepping up epidemiological surveillance in chicken, turkey and goose farms, the Belgian Bird Ringing Centre at the RBINS was mandated by the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC) to monitor wild birds that could potentially transmit influenza viruses. Indeed, wild birds move about freely and the immense majority of them are protected. It is therefore essential to develop specific epidemiological monitoring programmes that are compatible with their protected status, whilst at the same time collecting the necessary data to develop public health policies. With its ringing specialists who have a long experience in gently capturing birds, combined with effective, tested sampling methodologies, the RBINS is capable of offering timely, additional information that is essential for monitoring and assessing such epidemics.

Apart from the collection of virological and serological samples, the RBINS is helping the health authorities to monitor the movements of wild birds (migrations) through the ringing programme that has been conducted since 1927. The data file collected so far has over 500,000 records. All of this information therefore makes it possible in this case to assess the dispersion capacities of these notorious viruses.

Belgium and the Congo Meet to Preserve Biodiversity

With 2 million km² of forested area, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) contains nearly half of the tropical forests on the African continent. The River Congo alone accounts for 25% of Africa’s renewable water. But the principal wealth of the Congo basin is its incredible biodiversity. For some years the Congolese government has made efforts to ensure that its tropical forests are exploited sustainably. However, owing to its limited financial resources, the DRC needs support from abroad to rebuild the human and technical capacities it requires to ensure that its tropical forests are not destroyed.

Although Congolese biodiversity, and more specifically its tropical swamp forests, have been studied for a long time, very little recent information is available and practically all of our present knowledge is based on data and collections of specimens dating back to the colonial era. As the competent Congolese scientific community who is able to conduct research into biodiversity has suffered greatly from the complete isolation into which it was plunged by the chaotic period of the war, the RBINS, the Royal Museum for Central Africa, the National Botanical garden and the university of Kisangani have developed an ambitious project: Congo-Belgique-2010.

The project’s main objectives are:

• to increase the capacity of the scientific community in the DRC by providing training to scientists and technicians;

• to create a Centre for the Study of Biodiversity at the University of Kisangani (collections, research, expertise and training);

• to organise a major expedition, in 2010, along the River Congo to collect biological

specimens (land and fluvial) which will be kept at the Centre for the Study of Biodiversity and will serve as the basis for all subsequent projects to monitor biodiversity in the Congo Basin.

Work during 2009 focused on the organisation of a preparatory mission and the training of Congolese researchers in taxonomy, ecology and more widely in environmental sciences. With the support it received from the Belgian Federal Scientific and Development Cooperation Policy, the Congolese government and unesco, the project has made it possible to acquire equipment, fund small research projects to be undertaken by the trainees, publish their results in reading committee reviews and organise a workshop on conservation strategies.

25.06

The bio-archaeological excavation campaign in Egyptian Predynastic tombs, known as Les animaux des dieux (Animals of the Gods), presented its results (Palaeontology Department)

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

BIologICAl eVAluATIoN

FReSHWATeR BIologY

The Impact of Biofuels on Biodiversity in Belgium

At the request of the Federal Public Health Programming Service, the RBINS has launched research to assess the impact of the development of biofuel crops on biodiversity in Belgium. Considering the areas necessary for the production of raw materials, researchers have quantified the effects on several animal populations of an extension of the land used for agricultural purposes, which could result from the incentives to produce non-food raw materials.

Common countryside birds, whose population have fallen by nearly 50% over the past twenty-five years in europe, have proven to be the best bio-indicators. If in open, natural habitats, one hectare produces 1 tonne of various grain each year and feeds 30 to 40kg of birds, in agricultural areas the same area produces 10 tonnes of cereals but feeds only 1 kg of birds.

By focusing on the evaluation of the impact of agro-fuels produced in Belgium, the RBINS is seeking to find out whether by further increasing the hold of agriculture on ecosystems, these new crops are going to aggravate – or not – this serious trend which is emptying our countryside of its birds, which play an essential part in the equilibrium of the food chain.

The Freshwater Paradox

on our blue planet, fresh water accounts for only 0.01% of total water and covers less than 1% of the earth’s surface. However, paradoxically it contains 12% of all known species, i.e. 126,000 different species of animals.

lakes are precious ecosystems that offer a high value of regional biodiversity. unfortunately, their biological quality is deteriorating throughout europe at an alarming rate. In order to protect them and increase their biodiversity, the RBINS, in partnership with some ten institutions, is coordinating the PoNDSCAPe project, which is studying the dynamics of pond ecosystems and the effects of current management practices on their long-term existence.

Interdisciplinary research into bacteria, phytoplancton, zooplancton, invertebrates, amphibians and macrophytes has shown that local factors such as fish, macrophytes, the quality of sediments and turbidity have the most significant consequences on biodiversity in pools. These results provide clear information for the management of highly fragmented landscapes, such as agricultural areas. They notably recommend that groups of several pools near to one another should be considered as coherent management units. They also recommend the creation of groups of different types of ponds and pools (small-large, deep-shallow) in humid areas. In a complex of pools, certain expanses of water should only offer limited access to cattle, owing to the negative effects of trampling the ground around the water’s edge. This does not mean however that access to cattle should be totally prohibited, as studies on the distribution of parasites indicate that natural pools where cattle also drink are healthier than had been thought until now.

More widely, research shows that pools could be used as models to improve conservation and the management of biodiversity as a whole, as they are still abundantly present in the landscape, their biodiversity can reach very high levels and recommended management practices could quickly reveal their positive effects.

03.07	10.07
Lubumbashi Zoo (DRC) inaugurated a Katanga nature	Second EDIT summer
conservation exhibition, with the support of the Belgian	school organised by the
National Focal Point	Invertebrates Department in
	the region of the Muránska
	Planina national park
	(Slovakia)

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

Taxonomy: the RBINS Brings Together european Competences

In order to effectively protect all the worldwide fauna and flora, as many specialists would be required as there are animal or plant groups! Yet this is far from being the case and furthermore, the available expertise is dispersed and heterogeneous. Funded by the european Commission (eC) for 5 years with a budget of 11.9 million euros, the network of excellence eDIT (european Distributed Institute of Taxonomy) has set itself the aim of uniting them around common practices and tools. It consists of 29 institutions including the largest biological collections in europe. Within this network, the RBINS has been assigned the task of training and developing awareness of modern taxonomy throughout europe.

The RBINS has therefore created the Distributed european School of Taxonomy (www.taxonomytraining.eu) which compiles and organises the provision of training which until now has been highly dispersed throughout the different countries. In this context the RBINS, working closely with the Royal Museum for Central Africa and the National Botanical garden of Belgium, has coordinated the organisation of european summer schools. The second series of courses was held in Slovakia and brought together 18 professional taxonomists and 20 students from 16 european universities (in 11 countries).

Alongside this, a programme called “experts-in-training” offered 31 training courses in 13 eDIT establishments and in 8 other partner institutions, aimed at young professionals from institutions and universities. With the budget provided by the eC, 17 grants (for 61 candidates) were allocated, equivalent to 36 weeks of training.

In order to prepare for the International Year of Biodiversity (2010), the RBINS, which is responsible for raising public awareness in eDIT, created an electronic agenda in 2009 containing all the public events that will enable european society to better understand the issues involved in biodiversity. At the end of 2009, this online agenda presented over 150 events organised in 30 countries. (www.countdown2010.net/byse).

Finally, to encourage young people to take up a career in taxonomy, the RBINS has also compiled profiles of young researchers, presenting all the aspects of this overlooked profession which nevertheless often resembles a fascinating adventure, as described in the accounts of expeditions published on the eDIT blog (http://systematicsblog.myspecies.info/).

Sharing North Sea Databases

Access to marine data is of vital importance for an extensive range of research and studies, from forecasting climate change to coastal engineering.

But the marine observation system is highly fragmented and in countries bordering european seas, there are over 600 public and private laboratories which collect scientific data. All of these actors compile data by means of various sensors onboard research ships, submarines, fixed and floating platforms, aeroplanes and satellites, to measure physical, geophysical, geological, chemical and biological parameters. The data they collect are neither easily accessible nor standardised. They are not always checked and their security and availability are not always guaranteed.

In this context, the european Commission is supporting the SeaDataNet network, whose objective is to build a harmonised system for accessing high-quality data on the marine environment collected by oceanographic fleets and new automatic observation systems (buoys and satellites). The network’s objective is to improve existing infrastructures in 35 countries

ReCeNT INVeRTeBRATeS

MARINe eCoSYSTeM MANAgeMeNT

10.07	19 - 20.08	14.09
Celebration of the 25th	Training seminar for Dutch-	The internet project Ikhebeenvraag.be brought together
anniversary of the	speaking teachers on the	over 70 researchers and scientific communicators from
oceanographic ship Belgica,	subject of Evolution in the	Flemish institutions and universities and federal scientific
in Zeebrugge	classroom	establishments

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

ReCeNT INVeRTeBRATeS

by equipping them with harmonised querying interfaces. In this way, users will be able to consult dozens of datasets in a single operation, via a virtual one-stop shop. Working in partnership with 49 institutions in SeaDataNet, the RBINS thus takes part in the archiving and conservation of Belgian data, guarantees the preservation of observation data that is impossible to recreate and enhances the data required for marine environmental management.

National CBD Focal Point

Mandated as the National Focal Point, the RBINS ensures that the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is respected, by means of three principal activities: expertise and decision-making support, information and awareness and development cooperation.

The fourth National Report was published in 2009, which every four years assesses the imple

mentation of the CBD and presents the state of biodiversity in the country. The preparation of the International Year of Biodiversity is another highpoint. The combination of this International Year and the Belgian Presidency of the european union, in 2010, offers a unique opportunity to raise the public’s awareness and engage their responsibility about the importance of biodiversity, by encouraging them to adopt sustainable practices. At the end of 2009, in synergy with the Je donne vie à ma planète campaign, the Focal Point published 366 gestes pour la biodiversité, a small book proposing one action per day to promote biodiversity. The success of this publication aimed at the general public was immediate: several thousand books were distributed in a few weeks and thousands of new commitments were made as part of the campaign.

The programme to support the introduction of the CBD in developing countries, funded by Belgian Development Cooperation, has had a fruitful year. The Focal Point took on 13 trainees from 9 countries for study visits in taxonomy and collection management. It also funded training courses in the field with RBINS researchers, in Peru, Vietnam and the Congo. With the support of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation, the Focal Point organised a workshop on the dynamics of habitats, in order to improve the standardisation of data collection in the field. Alongside this, it followed up and funded research conducted by three Congolese students in the Kahuzi-Biega and Virunga National Parks. The Focal Point also organised 9 training sessions for 60 people from 11 countries, on the development of websites connected with the Clearing House Mechanism (CHM), which should establish the signatory countries of the CBD to guarantee information exchange and scientific and technical cooperation. It funded 5 projects to provide technical back up for CHMs in Benin, guinea, Ivory Coast and Madagascar, and 3 projects to raise awareness about biodiversity in Burundi, Cameroon and the Congo.

Volume six in the series of taxonomical handbooks, Abc Taxa, has now been published on the subject of Sri lankan algae (www.abctaxa.be).

14.09

How were dogs domesticated? Mietje Germonpré (Palaeontology Department) replied to Greenfilms, at the request of the National Geographic Channel - UK

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

2. research

Preventive Conservation of Iguanodons

A treasured item at the museum, the thirty or so complete skeletons of the famous Bernissart Iguanodons are the focus of indefatigable scientific monitoring to guarantee their conservation.

The fossilisation of a bone is a complex phenomenon involving the decomposition of the organic material, recrystallisation of the osseous apatite, enrichment in trace elements, precipitation of new minerals into the cavities and finally compaction. In the case of the iguanodons, this all happened 125 million years ago in the depths of a coal mine. The fossilised bones are covered in pyrite, which makes them extremely fragile, as contact with the air and humidity oxidises the pyrite. As scratching away the visible damaged parts does not prevent the degradation of the rest of the bone, scientists then developed irradiation techniques to treat the bones so that the pyrite oxidisation is reduced. However, this approach also risks transforming the pyrite into other minerals, including sulphates which, as they develop, could completely break the bones.

By studying some fifty bones using x-ray diffraction, researchers in the Palaeontology Department, in association with mineralogists from the university of liège, have identified 13 new minerals originating from the decomposition of pyrite. The two most abundant ones belong to the family of iron sulphates. Known as Szomolnokite and Rozenite, they differ only in their hydration level and can be transformed from one to the other depending on the humidity. other sulphates, variants of apatite and compounds containing zinc, aluminium, calcium, sulphur and quartz have also been found, bringing up to twenty the number of minerals attacking the Bernissart iguanodons. Some were formed when the animals became buried; others formed during the long period under the earth and yet others formed in contact with the open air following their excavation, in 1878. The phenomenon is complex and sometimes, even in one cubic centimeter, researchers have observed both empty micro cavities and others full of pyrite. The identification and precise location of these different minerals then makes it possible to improve conservation conditions, to manage each bone of this incredible heritage on a case-by-case basis, which has been handed down to us from the depths of time and which has not yet revealed all of its secrets to us.

2009, the Year of the gorilla

gorillas share 98.4% of their genes with humans, a biological proximity that provides a permanent source of inspiration and fascination. Yet these great apes are threatened by hunting and the fragmentation and degradation of their habitats, diseases and epidemics, along with the incessant armed conflicts that are devastating their tropical forests. Following the initiative of the united Nations Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species, better known as the Bonn Convention or CMS, to which the RBINS has contributed its scientific expertise for many years, 2009 was declared “The Year of the gorilla” to alert public opinion: all the gorilla species are in fact on the IuCN red list of threatened species, as either at best endangered or at worst, critically endangered. Although it is difficult to quantify, the worldwide gorilla population is approximately 200,000 individuals and is constantly dwindling. Conservation biologists from the RBINS took an active part in this Year of the gorilla by providing the necessary scientific data required to establish a new agreement on the conservation of gorillas and their habitats, which was ratified in 2009 by the 10 African States where the gorilla is found.

20.09

After having been seen by 100,158 visitors in Brussels, the Survivors of the X-TREME exhibition, co-produced by the RBINS, Naturalis (NL) and Experimentarium (DK), opened at the Pavilhão do Conhecimento in Lisbon (PT)

PAlAeoNTologY

BIologICAl eVAluATIoN

24.09

Adoption of the 4th Belgian National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity, prepared by the National Focal Point

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

3. collections

under the coordination of the Royal library of Belgium, the RBINS is taking part in the development of a centralised digital catalogue of the publications found in the libraries of Belgian federal scientific establishments.

The digital catalogue was begun several years ago and already includes 194,423 entries; in 2009, the RBINS undertook the digitisation of 60,768 maps from the Belgian geological Service.

With the general Archives of the Kingdom, the RBINS has also begun digitising remarkable or even exceptional items of its heritage. using these criteria, the scientific library of the malacologist Philippe Dautzenberg (1849-1935) was selected.

The RBINS digitised these collections itself. At the end of 2009, nearly 9000 pages were scanned and 244 reference works were converted into PDF format.

The RBINS has a large quantity of publications of which are few or no available copies left. In response to researchers’ requirements, 21,542 pages of these publications have already been converted into 157 PDF files that can be accessed for free on request.

23.10

The acquisition of the Lucas collection, the largest privately-Beaufays collection enabled

owned collection of meteorites in Belgium, enhanced the the RBINS (Anthropology

RBINS mineralogy collection and Prehistory Section) to supplement the collection discovered in the cave at Spy in 1886

Towards the World library of life

under the aegis of the Museum für Naturkunde (Berlin), the Biodiversity Heritage library for

europe (BHl-europe) project has brought together 28 institutions from 14 countries to coordinate europe’s contribution to the great world library of publications in relation to biodiversity.

one obstacle to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB) is the lack of access to basic information about animals and plants. This is concentrated in books and scientific reviews from previous centuries, which are essentially found in europe and North America, and the only means of accessing this knowledge is to visit several libraries. Since 2007, the Biodiversity Heritage library project in America has begun publishing this literature on the Internet. The aim of BHl-europe is to develop this approach by assembling the best european literature about biodiversity. A multilingual software interface will be developed and include other innovative research functions that will facilitate fast access to all information. Beyond the needs of the scientific community, all of the documents will be accessible to the general public via the european digital library europeana. everyone will then be able to obtain first-hand information about animals and plants, but also about rare publications, such as the original studies of Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt, whilst admiring the illustrations from 17^th and 18^th century publications. Nature conservation organisations will have a data collection tool for rare or threatened species, in order to better plan protection activities.

Collections from the Past useful for Future Research

Combined with those of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervueren, the RBINS ornithological collections contain around 155,000 samples which originated from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including type specimens (unique worldwide references). using these historic populations, researchers are studying how the fragmentation of habitats due to deforestation or climate change is altering the biodiversity of birds in Africa. Their objective is to extract DNA sequences from these old collections in order to constitute a reference library of DNA sequences to enable the rapid identification of Central African bird species.

In this way, some 950 specimens collected between 1845 and 2008 representing 225 species have been sequenced. Initial results show that DNA deterioration in the oldest specimens does not permit the amplification of the DNA fragment required to create an unequivocal barcode. Nevertheless, researchers have managed to sequence very short fragments for the majority of the selected samples, which has opened the way for the use of old Belgian collections for phylogenetic and phylogeographic research.

12 -30.11

14.11

An entomologist from the

The RBINS Anthropology and Prehistory Section took part in RBINS took part in the

an expedition organised by the Royal Museum of Art and biodiversity inventory of dry

History to Easter Island to excavate a funerary monument coastal forest in Mozambique. The Our Planet Reviewed programme

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

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Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

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2008

2009

525

320

2 185

1 407

2 710

1 727

2007

6 843 2 959 867 2 271

2008

2009

6 981

7 112

3 114

3 263

911

967

2 413

2 504

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

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4. museum

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

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Celebration of Darwin Year

The highlight of 2009 was the opening, on 12^th February 2009, the date of the 200^th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, of a Gallery of Evolution, completing phase one of the major renovation work that began in 2007 with the Dinosaur gallery and the Paleolab. The whole complex – the history of life wing – offers the museum 5,000 m² of entirely renovated permanent exhibitions.

The aim of the Gallery of Evolution is to present in chronological order some of the major stages in the history of life and to explain the principal mechanisms of evolution. Six periods have been selected, either because the RBINS collections are particularly rich for this period, or because major events took place at these times which subsequently influenced different life forms.

The exhibition is designed as a combination of a narrative line illustrated by over 1.000 specimens, and an explanatory/demonstrative line supported by models, films, multimedia terminals and interactive devices presenting the logics underlying the main bifurcation points in the history of life.

Apart from families, the traditional visitors to the museum, the exhibition appears to have captured the imaginations of adult visitors who are not accompanied by children, and the final two years in secondary schools.

In the wake of this, phase two of the renovation, involving some 2700 m², has also been launched by the exhibitions and Museology Services. The objective is to develop a new presentation of current fauna, organised around the relationships between environments and their biodiversity. The first stage in this renovation, which aims to present the dynamics of life, i.e. the adaptation and evolutionary processes, consists of the creation of a new gallery, focusing entirely on biodiversity in the city.

Finally, the interactive exhibition Les survivants de l’X-Treme designed jointly with Naturalis (leyde) and experimentarium (Copenhagen) was presented in Brussels from 14^th october 2008 to 30^th August 2009 (100,000 visitors), then in the Knowledge Pavilion (lisbon) from 20th September 2009. The exhibition on criminalistics Meurtre au Muséum which was entirely devised and created by the RBINS, was rented to the Cité des Sciences (Paris), where it was visited by 265,000 people in 11 months.

Teaching evolution in the Face of Creationism

To accompany the Gallery of Evolution, the educational service has developed new guided tours and educational workshops explaining the theory of evolution. It organised meetings to help teachers integrate evolutionary theory into their natural history lessons. With the help of researchers it notably identified the existing educational material that enables teachers to reply to questions raised by the creationist movement.

For several years, with funding from the Brussels Capital Region, the educational service has developed lightweight exhibitions and workshops that can be transported around the 19 municipalities of Brussels. They are free of charge and presented (in Fr and Nl) by museum guides, thereby constituting one of the major elements of the RBINS’s provision of free services.

In this context, in 2009, the educational service toured and presented the A vol d’oiseau / Vogels in de stad exhibition-workshop, the end of the Water-L’eau presentation at the Kijkduin museum, Den Helder and the Mini-Jungle installation at the Palais de l’univers et des Sciences in Dunkirk.

17/11

Launch of 2010 - International Year of Biodiversity. The almanach 366 gestes pour la biodiversité boosted the commitment campaign Je donne vie à ma planète.

12.12

Over 3,000 people have already signed up to this campaign. You can join them via the website www. jedonnevieamaplanete.be

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

4. museum

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

4. museum

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

4. museum

Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences –

4. museum

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