Menaces D’origine Anthropique Et Habitat De Pan Paniscus Dans La Reserve Naturelle De Sankuru, En Republique Democratique Du Congo

Le bonobo (Pan paniscus), est une espèce endémique à la République Démocratique du Congo (RDC). La présente étude identifie les menaces qui pèsent sur ce primate au niveau de la Réserve Naturelle de Sankuru (RNSA), les priorise à partir des analyses spatiales en évaluant, de manière comparative, l’évolution de l’occupation du sol à l’intérieur et extérieur de la zone protégée. Par rapport au reste de l’aire de répartition historique du bonobo en RDC où la chasse est une préoccupation majeure, les enquêtes dans la zone d’étude révèlent que l’agriculture sur brûlis est la première menace d’origine anthropique qui influe plus sur la survie de ce primate. L’étude révèle des signes d’existence d’une ignorance persistante aux lois du pays en matière de gestion et de conservation de la nature de la part de la population locale. La croissance démographique, le manque d’alternatives de subsistance ainsi que l’expansion de l’occupation du sol à l’intérieur et aux alentours de la RNSA présentent des grandes envergures spatiales et un impact très remarquable sur le couvert végétal. La vitesse de l’expansion du complexe rural est de 1,5% dans la RNSA soit 3600 ha/an. Cette extension se fait de façons identiques à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur de la limite de la RNSA. The bonobo (Pan paniscus), is an endemic species to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This study identifies the threats to this primate in the Sankuru Natural Reserve (RNSA), prioritizes them based on spatial analyzes by evaluating, in a comparative manner, the land use evolution inside and outside the protected area. Compared to the rest of the bonobo distribution area where hunting is a major concern, surveys reveal that slash-and-burn agriculture is the first anthropogenic threat that has the greatest impact on bonobo's survival in the RNSA. The reveals signs of persistent ignorance to the country's laws on the management and conservation of nature by the local population. Population growth, the lack of subsistence alternatives as well as the expansion of the rural complex within and around the RNSA present large spatial dimensions and a very remarkable impact on the vegetation cover. The rate of expansion of the rural complex is 1.5% in the RNSA or 3600 ha / year. This extension of the rural complex is done in identical ways inside and outside the RNSA boundary

Net productivity, a new metric to evaluate the contribution to food security of livestock systems: the case of specialised dairy farms

peer reviewedThe increasing human population and demand for animal food products raise the issue of impacts of animal systems on food security caused by their use of human-edible feed and/or tillable land. The utility of replacing animal systems with potential food-crop systems needs to be assessed but is associated with many uncertainties. Some metrics analyse the contribution of current animal systems to food security, especially the dimension of food availability. These methods address feed conversion efficiency (i.e. total (‘gross’) or human-edible (‘net’)) or the efficiency of agricultural land use (i.e. total, permanent grassland, and tillable land) but never both simultaneously. The purpose of this study was to develop a new metric—‘net productivity’—to represent the performances of current animal systems more accurately by considering both the use of human-edible feed and agricultural land. Through a protein assessment, we analysed the ability of the existing and the new metrics to assess the performances of 111 dairy farms in Wallonia (Belgium). We found that net productivity was positively correlated with both metrics of feed conversion efficiency and negatively correlated with the three metrics of land use. To analyse the influence of farm characteristics, we grouped the farms into four clusters using k-means clustering based on these metrics of contribution to food security and then performed redundancy analysis to select the most influential farm characteristics aiming to highlight contrasted farm strategies. The highest net productivity was reached by an ‘intensive and net efficient’ farm strategy, which had intensive grass-based management, high milk production per cow, appropriate use of concentrates, and well-managed dairy followers (i.e. replacement heifers and calves). The newly developed metric of net productivity can be useful to quantify the contribution of dairy systems to food security by considering both the use of human-edible protein and agricultural land simultaneously

Monitoring morphological changes in 2D monolayer semiconductors using atom-thick plasmonic nanocavities.

Nanometer-sized gaps between plasmonically coupled adjacent metal nanoparticles enclose extremely localized optical fields, which are strongly enhanced. This enables the dynamic investigation of nanoscopic amounts of material in the gap using optical interrogation. Here we use impinging light to directly tune the optical resonances inside the plasmonic nanocavity formed between single gold nanoparticles and a gold surface, filled with only yoctograms of semiconductor. The gold faces are separated by either monolayers of molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) or two-unit-cell thick cadmium selenide (CdSe) nanoplatelets. This extreme confinement produces modes with 100-fold compressed wavelength, which are exquisitely sensitive to morphology. Infrared scattering spectroscopy reveals how such nanoparticle-on-mirror modes directly trace atomic-scale changes in real time. Instabilities observed in the facets are crucial for applications such as heat-assisted magnetic recording that demand long-lifetime nanoscale plasmonic structures, but the spectral sensitivity also allows directly tracking photochemical reactions in these 2-dimensional solids.This work was supported by the UK EPSRC grant EP/G060649/1, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), and ERC grant 320503 LINASS.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from ACS via http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/nn5064198

Cuticular Compounds Bring New Insight in the Post-Glacial Recolonization of a Pyrenean Area: Deutonura deficiens Deharveng, 1979 Complex, a Case Study

Background: In most Arthropod groups, the study of systematics and evolution rely mostly on neutral characters, in this context cuticular compounds, as non-neutral characters, represent an underexplored but potentially informative type of characters at the infraspecific level as they have been routinely proven to be involved in sexual attraction. Methods and Findings: The collembolan species complex Deutonura deficiens was chosen as a model in order to test the utility of these characters for delineating four infraspecific entities of this group. Specimens were collected for three subspecies (D. d. deficiens, D. d. meridionalis, D. d. sylvatica) and two morphotypes (D. d. sylvatica morphoype A and B) of the complex; an additional species D. monticola was added. Cuticular compounds were extracted and separated by gas chromatography for each individual. Our results demonstrate that cuticular compounds succeeded in separating the different elements of this complex. Those data allowed also the reconstruction of the phylogenetic relationships among them. Conclusions: The discriminating power of cuticular compounds is directly related to their involvement in sexual attraction and mate recognition. These findings allowed a discussion on the potential involvement of intrinsic and paleoclimatic factors in the origin and the diversification of this complex in the Pyrenean zone. This character type brings the first advanc

Carbohydrate-active enzymes from the zygomycete fungus Rhizopus oryzae: a highly specialized approach to carbohydrate degradation depicted at genome level

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p><it>Rhizopus oryzae </it>is a zygomycete filamentous fungus, well-known as a saprobe ubiquitous in soil and as a pathogenic/spoilage fungus, causing Rhizopus rot and mucomycoses.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Carbohydrate Active enzyme (CAZy) annotation of the <it>R. oryzae </it>identified, in contrast to other filamentous fungi, a low number of glycoside hydrolases (GHs) and a high number of glycosyl transferases (GTs) and carbohydrate esterases (CEs). A detailed analysis of CAZy families, supported by growth data, demonstrates highly specialized plant and fungal cell wall degrading abilities distinct from ascomycetes and basidiomycetes. The specific genomic and growth features for degradation of easily digestible plant cell wall mono- and polysaccharides (starch, galactomannan, unbranched pectin, hexose sugars), chitin, chitosan, β-1,3-glucan and fungal cell wall fractions suggest specific adaptations of <it>R. oryzae </it>to its environment.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>CAZy analyses of the genome of the zygomycete fungus <it>R. oryzae </it>and comparison to ascomycetes and basidiomycete species revealed how evolution has shaped its genetic content with respect to carbohydrate degradation, after divergence from the Ascomycota and Basidiomycota.</p

Peering into the dark (ages) with low-frequency space interferometers: Using the 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the infant universe to probe fundamental (Astro)physics.

The Dark Ages and Cosmic Dawn are largely unexplored windows on the infant Universe (z ~ 200-10). Observations of the redshifted 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen can provide valuable new insight into fundamental physics and astrophysics during these eras that no other probe can provide, and drives the design of many future ground-based instruments such as the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). We review progress in the field of high-redshift 21-cm Cosmology, in particular focussing on what questions can be addressed by probing the Dark Ages at z > 30. We conclude that only a space- or lunar-based radio telescope, shielded from the Earth's radio-frequency interference (RFI) signals and its ionosphere, enable the 21-cm signal from the Dark Ages to be detected. We suggest a generic mission design concept, CoDEX, that will enable this in the coming decades

Fungal enzyme sets for plant polysaccharide degradation

Enzymatic degradation of plant polysaccharides has many industrial applications, such as within the paper, food, and feed industry and for sustainable production of fuels and chemicals. Cellulose, hemicelluloses, and pectins are the main components of plant cell wall polysaccharides. These polysaccharides are often tightly packed, contain many different sugar residues, and are branched with a diversity of structures. To enable efficient degradation of these polysaccharides, fungi produce an extensive set of carbohydrate-active enzymes. The variety of the enzyme set differs between fungi and often corresponds to the requirements of its habitat. Carbohydrate-active enzymes can be organized in different families based on the amino acid sequence of the structurally related catalytic modules. Fungal enzymes involved in plant polysaccharide degradation are assigned to at least 35 glycoside hydrolase families, three carbohydrate esterase families and six polysaccharide lyase families. This mini-review will discuss the enzymes needed for complete degradation of plant polysaccharides and will give an overview of the latest developments concerning fungal carbohydrate-active enzymes and their corresponding families

Sexual dimorphism in cancer.

The incidence of many types of cancer arising in organs with non-reproductive functions is significantly higher in male populations than in female populations, with associated differences in survival. Occupational and/or behavioural factors are well-known underlying determinants. However, cellular and molecular differences between the two sexes are also likely to be important. In this Opinion article, we focus on the complex interplay that sex hormones and sex chromosomes can have in intrinsic control of cancer-initiating cell populations, the tumour microenvironment and systemic determinants of cancer development, such as the immune system and metabolism. A better appreciation of these differences between the two sexes could be of substantial value for cancer prevention as well as treatment

Optimasi Portofolio Resiko Menggunakan Model Markowitz MVO Dikaitkan dengan Keterbatasan Manusia dalam Memprediksi Masa Depan dalam Perspektif Al-Qur`an

Risk portfolio on modern finance has become increasingly technical, requiring the use of sophisticated mathematical tools in both research and practice. Since companies cannot insure themselves completely against risk, as human incompetence in predicting the future precisely that written in Al-Quran surah Luqman verse 34, they have to manage it to yield an optimal portfolio. The objective here is to minimize the variance among all portfolios, or alternatively, to maximize expected return among all portfolios that has at least a certain expected return. Furthermore, this study focuses on optimizing risk portfolio so called Markowitz MVO (Mean-Variance Optimization). Some theoretical frameworks for analysis are arithmetic mean, geometric mean, variance, covariance, linear programming, and quadratic programming. Moreover, finding a minimum variance portfolio produces a convex quadratic programming, that is minimizing the objective function ðð¥with constraintsð ð 𥠥 ðandð´ð¥ = ð. The outcome of this research is the solution of optimal risk portofolio in some investments that could be finished smoothly using MATLAB R2007b software together with its graphic analysis