Camelid keeper identification sources

Within this project we have sought to identify camelid keepers in Scotland through various sources. This psuedo-anonymised file demonstrates how keepers were identified and where overlap exists between sources

Humans can identify reward-related call types of chickens

Humans can decode emotional information from vocalizations of animals. However, little is known if these interpretations relate to the ability of humans to identify if calls were made in a rewarded or non-rewarded context. We tested whether humans could identify calls made by chickens (Gallus gallus) in these contexts, and whether demographic factors or experience with chickens affected their correct identification context and the ratings of perceived positive and negative emotions (valence) and excitement (arousal) of chickens. Participants (n = 194) listened to eight calls when chickens were anticipating a reward, and eight calls in non-rewarded contexts, and indicated whether the vocalizing chicken was experiencing pleasure/displeasure, and high/low excitement, using visual analogue scales. Sixty-nine per cent of participants correctly assigned reward and non-reward calls to their respective categories. Participants performed better at categorizing reward-related calls, with 71% of reward calls classified correctly, compared with 67% of non-reward calls. Older people were less accurate in context identification. Older people's ratings of the excitement or arousal levels of reward-related calls were higher than younger people's ratings, while older people rated non-reward calls as representing higher positive emotions or pleasure (higher valence) compared to ratings made by younger people. Our study strengthens evidence that humans perceive emotions across different taxa, and that specific acoustic cues may embody a homologous signalling system among vertebrates. Importantly, humans could identify reward-related calls, and this ability could enhance the management of farmed chickens to improve their welfare

Whole-genome resource sequences of 57 indigenous Ethiopian goats

Domestic goats are distributed worldwide, with approximately 35% of the one billion world goat population occurring in Africa. Ethiopia has 52.5 million goats, ~99.9% of which are considered indigenous landraces deriving from animals introduced to the Horn of Africa in the distant past by nomadic herders. They have continued to be managed by smallholder farmers and semi-mobile pastoralists throughout the region. We report here 57 goat genomes from 12 Ethiopian goat populations sampled from different agro-climates. The data were generated through sequencing DNA samples on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 platform at a mean depth of 9.71x and 150 bp pair-end reads. In total, ~2 terabytes of raw data were generated, and 99.8% of the clean reads mapped successfully against the goat reference genome assembly at a coverage of 99.6%. About 24.76 million SNPs were generated. These SNPs can be used to study the population structure and genome dynamics of goats at the country, regional, and global levels to shed light on the species' evolutionary trajectory.</p

A meta-omics approach to explore the biofuel-producing enzyme potential from extreme environmental conditions

Geothermally warmed spring water contaminated with decomposed leaf biomass are unique hot spring ecosystems, are expected to support the recycling of various nutrients and to host lignocellulose degrading thermostable enzymes, genes and bacteria. An attempt is made in the present study to explore CAZymes in a carbohydrate-contaminated unique environment at Deulajhari spring through a multi-omics approach using an indigenous consortium developed from the spring sediment. Co-assembly of shotgun metagenome and metatranscriptome libraries from the Deulajhari hot spring consortia sample recovered seventeen refined, high-quality near-complete genomes. The predominant recovery of thermophilic aerobic chemo-heterotrophic Meiothermus and Rhodothermus has been observed through genome reconstruction. The reported production of an array of enzymes, including xylanase, β-xylosidase, endoglucanase and polysaccharide deacetylase, establishes their lignocellulose-degrading ability. The unexpected strong positive correlation between predominating Meiothermus and less prevailing members of Acetobacteraceae, unclassified Gaiellaceae, unclassified Burkholderiaceae and Tepidimonas of the consortium signifies their unexplored role in biomass degradation. Furthermore, the synergistic involvement of the diverse enzymes represented by a vast gene repertoire is responsible for the degradation of complex plant polysaccharides by the group of bacteria. The novelty of the present study stems from the identification of a diverse range of potential lignocellulose-digesting enzymes expressed by the bacterial consortium. This finding emphasizes the significant potential of these enzymes in facilitating industrial-scale production of biofuel, making it a notable contribution to the field.</p