The Role Of The Feral Pig (sus Scrofa) As A Disturbance Agent And Seed Disperser In Central Florida\u27s Natural Lands

Feral pigs (Sus scrofa) are considered to be among the world’s worst invasive species due to their successful invasion and ecological and economic impact to native and agricultural plants and animals around the world. Feral pigs are significant disturbance agents that destroy plant communities, change soil characteristics, alter nutrient cycling, and create open sites for colonization of both native and non-native plant species through their foraging behavior called rooting. In contrast to native animal disturbances, rooting is a striking feature in the landscape that varies in space, seasonal timing, frequency (number of times rooted), and intensity (depth of rooting). During this study, feral pigs rooted 7.7% of the search area, which increased to 12% when abandoned patches (baseline patches that were not rooted during this study) were included. Overall, feral pigs rooted and re-rooted habitats along roads and trails significantly more than wetlands. Rooting also varied temporally with the most rooting occurring during July-November, which also corresponds to the peak in rooting intensity. Implications to land managers include avoiding the installation of roads and trails near wet to mesic habitats or other habitats that contain species of concern in order to conserve habitat quality and recreational value. Despite less rooting activity, feral pigs still pose a significant threat to wetlands as evidenced by the large amount of abandoned patches documented. In order to conserve natural areas, effective management and development of efficient control methods is needed to keep feral pig populations in check. As a large opportunistic omnivore, feral pigs have the potential to be important vectors for endozoochorus seed dispersal of a variety of plant species. Feral pigs can travel long iv distances and have a gut retention time up to 49 hours, therefore seeds can be deposited throughout the landscape far from the parent plant. Over the course of this study, feral pigs dispersed 50 plant species from a wide range of ecological and morphological characteristics, though the majority were native, small seeded, wetland species. For most plant species, location of deposition matched their habitat preference and suggests a high probability of survival. Feral pigs disperse mainly wetland plant species, which has important implications for wetland conservation. However, feral pigs also deposited unwanted species into wetlands and predated the seeds of important wetland canopy tree species

Hippocampal high-frequency stimulation inhibites the progression of rapid kindling-induced seizure in rats

Epilepsy is one of the most common serious neurological disorders. Pharmacoresistant epilepsy patients are poorly con-trolled or their seizures are refractory to drug treatment. Resective surgery is frequently a promising therapy in this population, however, not all the patients meet the eligibility criteria for the surgical treatment. Deep brain stimulation has been investigated in clinical studies and animal studies as an alternative treatment, but the optimal stimulation pa- rameters remain an issue. The present study was designed to investigate the effect of unilateral high-frequency stimula- tion (HFS) of hippocampus on seizure development by using the hippocampal rapid kindling method (hRK) in rats, and compared the results with those of low-frequency stimulation previously published by our group. We used male Wistar rats implanted with electrodes in the ventral hippocampus. All rats underwent hRK (biphasic square wave pulses, 20 Hz for 10 seconds) during three consecutive days (twelve stimulations per day). The control group (hRK; n = 7) received only RK stimulus, while the treated group (HFS-hRK; n = 9) received also HFS (biphasic square wave pulses, 130 Hz for 30 seconds) immediately before the RK stimulus, during three consecutive days. At the end of behavioral testing 78% (p < 0.01) of the animals receiving HFS treatment were still not fully kindled staying in stages 0 - III (p < 0.01). HFS group needed a higher number of stimulations to achieve stage III (p < 0.05) with respect to control group. How- ever, no significant differences in the cumulative daily afterdischarge duration were observed. HFS did not present sig- nificant differences compared with LFS in any of studied parameters. The findings suggest that unilateral HFS applied on hippocampus effectively inhibited the epileptogenic process induced by hippocampal rapid kindling. According to the comparative results about hippocampal rapid kindled animals stimulated with HFS and LFS (5 Hz), we found no conclusive information on which treatment is most efficient.Fil: Gori, María Belén. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Pereyra, Magdalena. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Toibaro, Lucas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Brescacin, Carola. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Battaglia, Gerardo Ángel. Universidad Tecnológica Nacional; ArgentinaFil: Pastorino, Julieta. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Smigliani, Ariela. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Galardi, Milagros. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; ArgentinaFil: Kochen, Silvia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Houssay. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia "Prof. Eduardo de Robertis". Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Medicina. Instituto de Biología Celular y Neurociencia; Argentin

Growth of Epitaxial Tungsten Nanorods

A simple vapour deposition technique was used to prepare WO3 one-dimensional nanostructures.WO3 is sublimated at a relatively low temperature (550 1C) in air at atmospheric pressure.The sublimated species are condensed on mica substrate at 500 1C.Single crystalline nanorods are grown in epitaxy on the mica surface with a growth axis along [0 1 0] directions and (0 0 1) plane parallel to the substrate.A growth process is proposed in which the formation of a onedimensional tetragonal tungsten bronze as precursor is the determining factor

Procedure di elaborazione dati GNSS tramite software Bernese

I GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) sono i sistemi satellitari di navigazione globale il cui scopo principaleè la determinazione della posizione di un qualsiasi ricevitore situato sul suolo terrestre, ad esempio uno smartphone o un navigatore. L'elaborato di questa tesi si concentra sui livelli di precisione più elevati, che richiedono una sofisticata elaborazione dei dati e, di conseguenza, un ampio intervallo di tempo per il calcolo

Efficacy of yeast extracts in the containment of some grapevine diseases

reservedLa coltivazione della vite è soggetta all’attacco da parte da funghi patogeni e oomiceti che portano sia a scadimenti quantitativi nella resa delle uve, che a scadimenti qualitativi nella successiva produzione di vino. I due principali agenti patogeni dei nostri areali sono il fungo polifago Botrytis cinerea e l’oomicete Plasmopara viticola, rispettivamente agenti causali di marciume grigio e peronospora della vite. I principali metodi di difesa prevedono l’utilizzo di prodotti fitosanitari di sintesi. In un’ottica di difesa integrata e di difesa biologica con lo scopo di ridurre l’uso di prodotti fitosanitari causa la politica comunitaria, l’opinione pubblica, lo sviluppo di resistenze e problemi tossicologici ed ecologici, sono stati sperimentati negli anni diversi prodotti di origine naturale. Tra queste molecole di origine naturale è interessante l’impiego di estratti di lievito allo scopo di indurre le difese della vite. Alcuni di questi prodotti basati su estratti di lievito sono già disponibili in commercio, ma ad oggi non sono ancora ben noti i meccanismi di azione di questi prodotti, la reale efficacia e le possibili aree di impiego. Questo lavoro si propone di andare a valutare l’efficacia di diversi estratti di lievito ottenuti con diverse tecniche di produzione e di estrazione contro P. viticola e B. cinerea in ambiente controllato. Allo stesso tempo l’efficacia contro le suddette malattie dei diversi estratti di lievito è confrontata con l’efficacia di un preparato commerciale a base di estratti di lievito. Inoltre, viene valutata l’efficacia di un prodotto commerciale contenente estratto di lievito in pieno campo. Dai risultati ottenuti a livello laboratoriale si capisce la potenzialità di questi prodotti e l’efficacia che diversi estratti di lievito possono avere rispetto a quelli che si trovano commercialmente. In campo, i risultati ottenuti non sono stati paragonabili a quelli ottenuti in ambiente controllato, questo anche a causa della difficile annata nel contenimento delle due malattie. Si deduce che la ricerca sugli estratti di lievito come prodotti per indurre le resistenze della vite e di altre colture debba continuare, attraverso sperimentazioni sia in scala laboratoriale che in pieno campo