Beauplan’s Ukraine: open access georeferenced databases for studies of early modern history of Central and Eastern Europe

In 1630, Guillaume Le Vasseur, sieur de Beauplan, travelled to the lands of Poland-Lithuania to begin a seventeen-year military career in the Crown army. The purpose of the Beauplan’s Ukraine (BU) project is to provide a set of open access, georeferenced databases for the populated places, rivers, river fords, river rapids, islands, forests, mountains, valleys, and travel paths that are shown on a selection of maps created by Beauplan. The purpose of this document is to describe how these databases and related materials can be accessed and applied by scholars, with the ultimate goal of this work being to convert the rich source of information provided by Beauplan’s maps into a viable instrument for the laboratory of the historian of south-eastern Europe in Early Modern times.

A checklist of rheophytes of Cameroon

Rivers in Cameroon were surveyed to collect and document rheophytic plants. Rheophytes are the dominant aquatic macrophytes in tropical river systems, where they are adapted to extreme environments of rushing water (e.g., river rapids, waterfalls and flash floods). Rheophytic plants are useful indicators of river health. However, their habitats are threatened by human activities such as agriculture, plantation development, alluvial mining and dam construction, particularly in tropical countries. In this survey we documented 66 rheophytic species in 29 genera and 16 families. Two ferns, 8 monocotyledons and 56 dicotyledons were listed. Apart from the Podostemaceae family in which all species are rheophytic, the other 15 families have few species which are rheophytic. Five of these families have up to four species and the remaining 10 have only one member as a rheophytic species. The conservation status of each species is assessed and discussed. This work urges botanists, conservationists, and policy makers to do more to protect the habitats of rheophytes and put in place strategies and action plans for the conservation of this important biological group.

Micralestes (Characiformes, Alestidae) of the lower Congo River, with a description of a new species endemic to the lower Congo River rapids in the Democratic Republic of Congo

A new dwarf alestid from the vicinity of Inga on the lower Congo River, Bas Congo Province, Democratic Republic of Congo is described. Assignment of the new taxon to the poorly defined genus, Micralestes, is discussed and justified on the basis of available morphological character data. With the recognition of Micralestes schelly sp. nov., a total of six Micralestes are now known to inhabit the 350 km stretch of the Congo River from Pool Malebo to Boma near the river’s estuary. These are Micralestes acutidens (Peters, 1852), Micralestes humilis Boulenger, 1899, Micralestes lualabae Poll, 1967, Micralestes holargyreus (Günther, 1873), Micralestes stormsi Boulenger, 1902, and the new species Micralestes schelly. Of these Micralestes schelly and Micralestes holargyreus are considered herein as restricted-range endemics of the lower Congo River. An illustrated key to Micralestes of the lower Congo River is provided.