Effect of L-Ascorbic Acid on the Glycogen Contents During Mercury Intoxication in the Freshwater Bivalve, Parreysia Cylindrica

Freshwater bivalve, Parreysia cylindrica was exposed to acute (0.6 ppm) and chronic (0.12 ppm) doses of HgCl2 and HgCl2 with several concentrations of ascorbic acid. Glycogen contents from mantle, foot, gills, gonads and digestive glands were estimated after 24 hours and 96 hours of acute and 7 days and 21 days of chronic exposure from each group of test animals. Depletion of glycogen contents in different tissues caused due to mercury stress was much more as compared to those exposed to HgCl2 with ascorbic acid

Plastic reinforced fiberglass- an addition to beach litter

Beach litter or beach debris are solid wastes discarded intentionally by human beings or unintentionally either through land runoff or by waves. Marine litter is anthropogenic waste that has been released in water bodies or on land. Beach litter can become part of marine litter and vice versa due to water, wind and wave action

Habitat destruction: a case study on the evaluation of litter in the marine zone of north Vembanad Lake, Kerala

Bivalves play key role in ecosystem stabilisation due to inherent filter feeding capability and clams are important components of soft bottom benthic communities. In the Tuticorin Bay, mass mortality of fishes and shellfishes was observed in Februay 2008. The probable cause for the large scale mortality has been indicated as increased levels of ammonia (Asha et al., 2009). A rapid survey was conducted in the bay to assess the impact on the bivalve fauna

Population genetic structure of Garcinia imberti Bourd. an endangered endemic tree of southern Western Ghats, India

Assessing the genetic diversity of endemic plants is of great importance in future conservation programmes. The genetic diversity in Garcinia imberti from Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve of southern Western Ghats was assessed through ISSR markers by molecular characterization with 15 primers. A total of 157 accessions from six populations were used for the study. They generated 102 amplified products, out of which 89 were polymorphic (87.25%). It produced an average of 6.8 bands per primer and 5.93% polymorphism per primer. The present study revealed that G. imberti has moderate level of genetic diversity at species level but differs at population level. The dendrogram constructed following UPGMA exhibited that all accessions were clustered together except Poonkulam population. The genetic diversity analysis of G. imberti showed that even though the populations are closely associated, every population have their own characteristic diversity and should be conserved. Among the populations, Chemunji is the largest one with more genetic diversity and may conserve as the potential source of gene pool of this species

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON THE IN-VITRO ANTIMICROBIAL ACTIVITY OF THE ROOTS OF FOUR THOTTEA SPECIES

Objective: The main objective of the present study was to investigate the antimicrobial activity of the methanol extract of the roots of four Thottea species. Methods: The root extracts of four Thottea species were subjected to antimicrobial assay by Minimum Inhibitory Concentration (MIC) and Agar Disc diffusion Assay against various medically important pathogens. Results: It is evident from the study that. Significant antibacterial activity was recorded by Thottea sivarajanii and highest activity was recorded against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus epidermis (64 µg/ml). Out of the four extracts tested for antifungal activity, Thottea barberi and Thottea ponmudiana recorded significant antifungal activity and the highest activity was recorded by T. barberi against Trichophyton rubrum (16µg/ml). Conclusion: Results offer a scientific basis for the traditional use of Thottea species in the treatment of microbial infections, showing that the plant extract has an enormous potential as a prospective alternative drug against microbial pathogens. The present study lays the basis for future studies, to validate the possible use of Thottea species as a candidate in the treatment of microbial infections

Effect of cryopreservation on germination of seeds and zygotic embryos of Calamus shendurunii an endemic rattan of Western Ghats

Calamus shendurunii is an endemic rattan of Western Ghats having restricted distribution and limited population. As a prerequisite to device an appropriate method for ex situ conservation of the species, desiccation and cryopreservation of seeds and zygotic embryo has been studied. Seeds extracted from ripened fruits possessed 35 per cent moisture content and exhibited 97 per cent germination. Desiccation to 28 per cent moisture content reduced the germination to 77 per cent. Desiccation below 14 per cent moisture content caused complete loss of seed germinability. Seeds stored under ambient conditions (28±2oC/60% RH) for more than seven days reduced germination to less than 40 per cent. Thus, conventional storage is not effective for their ex situ conservation. As an alternative method, excised zygotic embryos were subjected to desiccation and storage in liquid nitrogen. The embryos tolerated desiccation down to 5 per cent exhibiting 60 to 90 per cent germination upon culture into MS medium. Desiccated embryos subjected to liquid nitrogen exposure showed post freeze recovery and germination (80-90%) equal to that of desiccated control samples. Thus the study proved the extreme recalcitrance of C. shendurunii seeds and embryo cryopreservation as an alternative method of their ex situ conservation in gene banks

Role of Clams in Regulating Biogeochemical Processes of Ashtamudi Lake

Role of Clams in Regulating Biogeochemical Processes of Ashtamudi Lak

PROTECTING DATA WITH FAULT CORRECTION SCRIPTS

A brand new architecture for matching the information protected by having an error-fixing code (ECC) is presented within this brief to lessen latency and complexity. Lately, however, triggered the attraction of increasingly more attentions in the academic field In line with the proven fact that the code word of the ECC is generally symbolized inside a systematic form composed from the raw data and also the parity information produced by encoding, the suggested architecture parallelizes the comparison from the data which from the parity information. To help lessen the latency and complexity, additionally, a brand new butterfly-created weight accumulator (BWA) is suggested for that efficient computation from the Hamming distance. Grounded around the BWA, the suggested architecture examines if the incoming data matches the stored data if your certain quantity of erroneous bits are remedied. For any (40, 33) code, the suggested architecture cuts down on the latency and also the hardware complexity by 32% and 9%, correspondingly, in comparison most abundant in recent implementation. Within the SA-based architecture, the comparison of two code words is invoked following the incoming tag is encoded. Therefore, the critical path includes a number of the encoding and also the n-bit comparison

Assessment of biogeochemical processes of Ashtamudi Lake ecosystem in relation to clam fishery

The Ashtamudi Lake ecosystem in Kerala (southwest coast of India) is well known for its clam resources. This estuarine system contributes approximately 80% of the total clam export trade of India besides providing livelihoods for at least 3,000 local people. Among bivalves, clams are an important source of meat for human consumption while its shells are used in the cement industry

Conservation of Garcinia imberti Bourd. through seeds

Garcinia imberti seeds were collected during 2015-2017 from Shangili, Cheenikkala and Bonaccord evergreen forests of Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve, the only abode of this endangered endemic species. Germinability of seeds were analysed through decoating, Gibberellic acid (GA3) and light inductive pre-treatments on fresh (62.8 % moisture content; MC) and desiccated (fast; 23.3% MC and slow; 30.5 % MC) seeds. The seed germination with impermeable coat (0.7-1.2 mm) was restricted which on decoating got enhanced. Application of GA3 along with exposure to light breaked dormancy within 4-6 days compared to non-treated seeds that took 238-254 days to germinate. Stored seeds behaviour revealed that seed moisture content and rate of germination were negatively correlated. Seed storage was found to be more efficient only up to 80 days at controlled seed banking conditions (20 ± 20C, 20 % relative humidity; RH). Both fast and slow desiccated seeds stored for 60 days in seed bank conditions exhibited 50.4 and 43.4 % of germination compared 39.4% germination of non-desiccated seeds. Hence fast desiccated and decoated G. imberti seeds pre-treated with GA3 on subsequent exposure to light alleviated dormancy. For seed banking, fast desiccated seeds with MC in between 40-20% are found to be promising