Water buffalo production in the Brazilian Amazon Basin: a review

The Brazilian Amazon has witnessed, in the last decades, an increase in the water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) inventory, with interesting productivity results. As the Brazilian Amazon contains the main water buffalo population in the Americas, the aim of this work is to review its most relevant production systems and some peculiarities about meat and milk production in this territory. The opening section describes the Amazon Basin, the most common water buffalo breeds, a brief history of the local livestock farming beginning in 1644. Also, it presents how water buffaloes gradually replaced bovine herds, especially where the latter had a lower productive performance. The use of extensive or more intensified models is pointed out and the ecosystems in which buffaloes are raised are detailed since native or cultivated pastures can be used in floodplains or drylands. Buffalo raising is favored in the Amazon due to the climate, soil, genetic variability of forages, animal adaptability, and physical space. Thus, it is clear that buffaloes have a high potential for meat and milk production and are an alternative in the use of altered areas of the Amazon; and, in the recent past, the low profitability of buffalo farming in traditional production systems in the Amazon was the reason which made this activity economically unattractive. Most recent technologies as outdoor confinements and silvopastoral systems are pointed out as more suitable regarding land-use policies, and buffalo farming for meat and milk production fits perfectly in this context, with productivity and beneficial socioeconomicinfo:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

A coleção herpetológica das Faculdades Integradas do Tapajós/Faculdade da Amazônia, Santarém, Pará, Brasil: 1 - Répteis

It shows the collection of the herpetological collection of the Tapajos Integrated Colleges/College Amazon, with complete list of species of reptiles and amphibians deposited in the collection. The herpetological collection currently houses 3.349 specimens, has scientific and didactic collection. The entire collection is properly tumbled and packaged as minimum requirements for collections. He represents an excellent database for the study of amazon herpetofauna. The cities with the most representative specimens of deposits in the collection are Santarem and Belterra, Pará, Brazil; most copies come from scientific expeditions and be can considered a regional dynamic collection because it is to the community. However, greater investments are needed structural, for the maintenance and growth of, the collection so that it continues in of continue with the performance of their duties.Apresenta-se o acervo da coleção herpetológica das Faculdades Integradas do Tapajós/Faculdade da Amazônia, com lista completa das espécies de répteis depositados na coleção. A coleção herpetológica abriga atualmente 3.349 espécimes, possui coleção científica e didática. Todo o acervo está devidamente tombado e acondicionado conforme exigências mínimas para coleções. E representa uma excelente base de dados para o estudo da herpetofauna amazônica. As cidades com maior representatividade de depósitos de espécimes na coleção são Santarém e Belterra, Pará, Brasil. Grande parte dos exemplares é oriunda de expedições científicas e pode ser considerada uma coleção regional dinâmica, pois se encontra à disposição da comunidade. Entretanto, são necessários maiores investimentos de ordem estrutural, para a manutenção e crescimento do acervo, para que este continue no desempenho de suas funções

Building The Sugarcane Genome For Biotechnology And Identifying Evolutionary Trends

Background: Sugarcane is the source of sugar in all tropical and subtropical countries and is becoming increasingly important for bio-based fuels. However, its large (10 Gb), polyploid, complex genome has hindered genome based breeding efforts. Here we release the largest and most diverse set of sugarcane genome sequences to date, as part of an on-going initiative to provide a sugarcane genomic information resource, with the ultimate goal of producing a gold standard genome.Results: Three hundred and seventeen chiefly euchromatic BACs were sequenced. A reference set of one thousand four hundred manually-annotated protein-coding genes was generated. A small RNA collection and a RNA-seq library were used to explore expression patterns and the sRNA landscape. In the sucrose and starch metabolism pathway, 16 non-redundant enzyme-encoding genes were identified. One of the sucrose pathway genes, sucrose-6-phosphate phosphohydrolase, is duplicated in sugarcane and sorghum, but not in rice and maize. A diversity analysis of the s6pp duplication region revealed haplotype-structured sequence composition. Examination of hom(e)ologous loci indicate both sequence structural and sRNA landscape variation. A synteny analysis shows that the sugarcane genome has expanded relative to the sorghum genome, largely due to the presence of transposable elements and uncharacterized intergenic and intronic sequences.Conclusion: This release of sugarcane genomic sequences will advance our understanding of sugarcane genetics and contribute to the development of molecular tools for breeding purposes and gene discovery. © 2014 de Setta et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.151European Commission: Agriculture and Rural Development: Sugar http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/sugar/index_en.htmKellogg, E.A., Evolutionary history of the grasses (2001) Plant Physiol, 125, pp. 1198-1205Grivet, L., Arruda, P., Sugarcane genomics: depicting the complex genome of an important tropical crop (2001) Curr Opin Plant Biol, 5, pp. 122-127Piperidis, G., Piperidis, N., D'Hont, A., Molecular cytogenetic investigation of chromosome composition and transmission in sugarcane (2010) Mol Genet Genomics, 284, pp. 65-73D'Hont, A., 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Effects of supplementation of tropical fruit processing by-products on lipid profile, retinol levels and intestinal function in Wistar rats

Abstract Fruits agro-industrial by-products may have a great variety of bioactive compounds that promote health. Thus, the effects of supplementation with acerola, cashew and guava processing by-products for 28 days on retinol level, lipid profile and on some aspects related to intestinal function in rats were investigated. The animals supplemented with different fruit by-products presented similar weight gain, faecal pH values and intestinal epithelial structures; however, they showed higher moisture and Lactobacillus spp. and Bifidobacterium spp. counts in faeces compared to the control group. Supplementation with the cashew by-product decreased the blood glucose, acerola and guava by-products reduced serum lipid levels and all fruit by-products tested increased serum and hepatic retinol. The results indicated that acerola and guava by-products possess a potential hypolipidemic effect. The three fruit by-products increase the hepatic retinol deposition and the faecal populations of beneficial bacterial groups and modulated aspects of intestinal function. The findings of this study can contribute to sustainable fruticulture and support future clinical studies with the supplementation of by-products

Measurement of the p-pbar -> Wgamma + X cross section at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV and WWgamma anomalous coupling limits

The WWgamma triple gauge boson coupling parameters are studied using p-pbar -> l nu gamma + X (l = e,mu) events at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV. The data were collected with the DO detector from an integrated luminosity of 162 pb^{-1} delivered by the Fermilab Tevatron Collider. The cross section times branching fraction for p-pbar -> W(gamma) + X -> l nu gamma + X with E_T^{gamma} > 8 GeV and Delta R_{l gamma} > 0.7 is 14.8 +/- 1.6 (stat) +/- 1.0 (syst) +/- 1.0 (lum) pb. The one-dimensional 95% confidence level limits on anomalous couplings are -0.88 < Delta kappa_{gamma} < 0.96 and -0.20 < lambda_{gamma} < 0.20.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev. D Rapid Communication