Chromosomal analysis of the leptodactylids Pleurodema diplolistris and Physalaemus nattereri (Amphibia, Anura)

Detailed characterizations of the karyotypes of the Brazilian leptodactylid frogs Pleurodema diplolistris, the only species of Pleurodema not studied cytogenetically so far, and Physalaemus nattereri, a species in the Ph. biligonigerus group, are presented. Both karyotypes had 2n = 22 and their chromosomes had a very similar morphology, except for pair 11, which was metacentric in Pl. diplolistris and telocentric in Ph. nattereri. The localization of nucleolar organizer regions (NORs) and heterochromatic bands allowed the differentiation of chromosomes that were morphologically indistinguishable between these species, such as pairs 1, 3 and 10, which showed interstitial C-bands in Ph. nattereri, and pair 8, that had an NOR and an adjacent C-band in Pl. diplolistris. Pair 8 also has NOR-bearing chromosomes in many other Pleurodema species. However, in these species, the NOR is located proximal to the centromere on the short arm, while in Pl. diplolistris it occurred distally on the long arm, a condition that may be considered a derived state. In Ph. nattereri, the NOR occurred on chromosome I 1 and differed from the other species of the Ph. biligonigerus group. In contrast, C-banding revealed a heterochromatic block near the centromere on the short arm of pair 3, a characteristic common to all members of this group of Physalaemus.27448148

Conjugated Linoleic Acid: good or bad nutrient

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a class of 28 positional and geometric isomers of linoleic acid octadecadienoic.Currently, it has been described many benefits related to the supplementation of CLA in animals and humans, as in the treatment of cancer, oxidative stress, in atherosclerosis, in bone formation and composition in obesity, in diabetes and the immune system. However, our results show that, CLA appears to be not a good supplement in patients with cachexia

Chromosome analysis in Pseudopaludicola (Anura, Leiuperidae), with description of sex chromosomes XX/XY in P-saltica

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Taxonomic changes have frequently occurred in the anuran genus Pseudopaludicola as a consequence of high morphological similarity among its species. The present work reports karyotypic analysis of three Pseudopaludicola species sampled in their type locality and four Pseudopaludicola populations from distinct localities, aiming at contributing to the systematics of this genus. Chromosomes were stained with Giemsa or submitted to the silver staining (Ag-NOR) and C-banding techniques. The karyotype was 2n=22 in P. mineira, Pseudopaludicola sp. and two populations of P. saltica. The chromosome pair 8 was heteromorphic in P. saltica, characterizing a XX/XY sex-determination system with telocentric X and submetacentric Y. Highly similar karyotypes with 2n=18 chromosomes were observed in P. canga, P. aff. canga from Barreirinhas, State of Maranhao, Uberlandia, State of Minas Gerais and Icem, State Sao Paulo. The high similarity among the karyotypes 2n=18 suggested that the populations of P. aff. canga belong to the group 'pusilla', the same group of P. canga. The data demonstrated also that P. aff. canga from Barreirinhas (northeast region) is cytogenetically identical to P. canga with regarding the NOR site position in pair 3 and the presence of a heterochromatic block in the pair 2, whereas P. aff. canga from Uberlandia and Icem (southeast) had the NOR in the pair 9. Moreover, the cytogenetic data discriminated P. mineira and Pseudopaludicola sp. from the previously analyzed species with 22 chromosomes, and suggested that Pseudopaludicola sp. is an undescribed species. Sexual heteromorphic chromosomes are firstly reported in Pseudopaludicola and the data indicated the need of an extensive taxonomic review in this genus.14724352Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Fundacao de Ensino de Sao Paulo (FUNDESP)Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)FAPESP [6/60055-0

Scale of Auditory Behaviors e testes auditivos comportamentais para avaliação do processamento auditivo em crianças falantes do português europeu

PURPOSE: The objective of this research was to assess the auditory abilities of Portuguese children and compare such abilities to the score of the Scale of Auditory Behaviors (SAB). METHODS: Fifty-one children were evaluated with audiometry, speech audiometry, acoustic immittance measures, and eight behavioral tests involving dichotic listening, monotic listening, temporal processing, and sound localization. Their parents filled in the SAB questionnaire adapted to European A. SAB scores and auditory tests scores were submitted to Pearson's correlation coefficient. RESULTS: There is significant correlation between the score on SAB questionnaire and the auditory processing tests. The greatest coefficient was observed in temporal processing test (p=0.000). CONCLUSION: There was correlation between the score of SAB and the performance in auditory processing tests, suggesting that the SAB may be used for auditory processing screening.OBJETIVO: Investigar as habilidades auditivas de crianças portuguesas e verificar se há correlação entre aquelas e o escore do Scale of Auditory Behaviors (SAB). MÉTODOS: Todas as crianças foram submetidas a audiometria tonal, logoaudiometria, medidas de imitância acústica e oito testes comportamentais do processamento auditivo, envolvendo tarefas de escuta dicótica, escuta monótica, processamento temporal e localização sonora. Os pais das 51 crianças portuguesas avaliadas preencheram o questionário SAB adaptado ao português europeu. Foram calculados os valores do coeficiente de correlação de Pearson entre os escores obtidos no questionário e os dos testes do processamento auditivo. RESULTADOS: Observou-se correlação significativa entre o escore do questionário e o dos testes comportamentais, tendo a maior sido observada nos testes relacionados ao processamento temporal (p=0,000). CONCLUSÃO: Houve correlação entre o escore da SAB e os resultados obtidos nos testes auditivos comportamentais em crianças portuguesas, sugerindo que este questionário pode ser utilizado em triagem do processamento auditivo.CIEC – Research Centre on Child Studies, UM (FCT R&D 317

Biodiversity Loss and the Taxonomic Bottleneck: Emerging Biodiversity Science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. ‘‘Backyard biodiversity’’, defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of ‘‘backyard biodiversity’’ specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability

A New (Old), Invasive Ant in the Hardwood Forests of Eastern North America and Its Potentially Widespread Impacts

Biological invasions represent a serious threat for the conservation of biodiversity in many ecosystems. While many social insect species and in particular ant species have been introduced outside their native ranges, few species have been successful at invading temperate forests. In this study, we document for the first time the relationship between the abundance of the introduced ant, Pachycondyla chinensis, in mature forests of North Carolina and the composition, abundance and diversity of native ant species using both a matched pair approach and generalized linear models. Where present, P. chinensis was more abundant than all native species combined. The diversity and abundance of native ants in general and many individual species were negatively associated with the presence and abundance of P. chinensis. These patterns held regardless of our statistical approach and across spatial scales. Interestingly, while the majority of ant species was strongly and negatively correlated with the abundance and presence of P. chinensis, a small subset of ant species larger than P. chinensis was either as abundant or even more abundant in invaded than in uninvaded sites. The large geographic range of this ant species combined with its apparent impact on native species make it likely to have cascading consequences on eastern forests in years to come, effects mediated by the specifics of its life history which is very different from those of other invasive ants. The apparent ecological impacts of P. chinensis are in addition to public health concerns associated with this species due to its sometimes, deadly sting

Economic and Environmental Impacts of Harmful Non-Indigenous Species in Southeast Asia

10.1371/journal.pone.0071255PLoS ONE88-POLN

Elevated Risk for HIV-1 Infection in Adolescents and Young Adults in São Paulo, Brazil

Background. Recent studies have sought to describe HIV infection and transmission characteristics around the world. Identification of early HIV-1 infection is essential to proper surveillance and description of regional transmission trends. In this study we compare people recently infected (RI) with HIV-1, as defined by Serologic Testing Algorithm for Recent HIV Seroconversion (STARHS), to those with chronic infection. Methodology/Principal Findings Subjects were identified from 2002-2004 at four testing sites in São Paulo. Of 485 HIV-1-positive subjects, 57 (12%) were defined as RI. Of the participants, 165 (34.0%) were aware of their serostatus at the time of HIV-1 testing. This proportion was statistically larger (p<0.001) among the individuals without recent infection (n = 158, 95.8%) compared to 7 individuals (4.2%) with recently acquired HIV-1 infection. In the univariate analysis, RI was more frequent in <25 and >59 years-old age strata (p<0.001). The majority of study participants were male (78.4%), 25 to 45 years-old (65.8%), white (63.2%), single (61.7%), with family income of four or more times the minimum wage (41.0%), but with an equally distributed educational level. Of those individuals infected with HIV-1, the predominant route of infection was sexual contact (89.4%), with both hetero (47.5%) and homosexual (34.5%) exposure. Regarding sexual activity in these individuals, 43.9% reported possible HIV-1 exposure through a seropositive partner, and 49.4% reported multiple partners, with 47% having 2 to 10 partners and 37.4% 11 or more; 53.4% of infected individuals reported condom use sometimes; 34.2% reported non-injecting, recreational drug use and 23.6% were reactive for syphilis by VDRL. Subjects younger than 25 years of age were most vulnerable according to the multivariate analysis. ) Conclusions/Significance In this study, we evaluated RI individuals and discovered that HIV-1 has been spreading among younger individuals in São Paulo and preventive approaches should, therefore, target this age stratu

Hypothalamic inflammation is reversed by endurance training in anorectic-cachectic rats

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Aim</p> <p>We tested the effects of a cancer cachexia-anorexia sydrome upon the balance of anti and pro-inflammatory cytokines in the hypothalamus of sedentary or trained tumour-bearing (Walker-256 carcinosarcoma) rats.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Animals were randomly assigned to a sedentary control (SC), sedentary tumour-bearing (ST), and sedentary pair-fed (SPF) groups or, exercised control (EC), exercised tumour-bearing (ET) and exercised pair-fed (EPF) groups. Trained rats ran on a treadmill (60%VO_2max) for 60 min/d, 5 days/wk, for 8 wks. We evaluated food intake, leptin and cytokine (TNF-α, IL1β) levels in the hypothalamus.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The cumulative food intake and serum leptin concentration were reduced in ST compared to SC. Leptin gene expression in the retroperitoneal adipose tissue (RPAT) was increased in SPF in comparison with SC and ST, and in the mesenteric adipose tissue (MEAT) the same parameter was decreased in ST in relation to SC. Leptin levels in RPAT and MEAT were decreased in ST, when compared with SC. Exercise training was also able to reduce tumour weight when compared to ST group. In the hypothalamus, IL-1β and IL-10 gene expression was higher in ST than in SC and SPF. Cytokine concentration in hypothalamus was higher in ST (TNF-α and IL-1β, p < 0.05), compared with SC and SPF. These pro-inflammatory cytokines concentrations were restored to control values (p < 0.05), when the animals were submitted to endurance training.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Cancer-induced anorexia leads towards a pro-inflammatory state in the hypothalamus, which is prevented by endurance training which induces an anti-inflammatory state, with concomitant decrease of tumour weight.</p

Potential impact of invasive alien species on ecosystem services provided by a tropical forested ecosystem: a case study from Montserrat

Local stakeholders at the important but vulnerable Centre Hills on Montserrat consider that the continued presence of feral livestock (particularly goats and pigs) may lead to widespread replacement of the reserve’s native vegetation by invasive alien trees (Java plum and guava), and consequent negative impacts on native animal species. Since 2009, a hunting programme to control the feral livestock has been in operation. However long-term funding is not assured. Here, we estimate the effect of feral livestock control on ecosystem services provided by the forest to evaluate whether the biodiversity conservation rationale for continuation of the control programme is supported by an economic case. A new practical tool (Toolkit for Ecosystem Service Site-based Assessment) was employed to measure and compare ecosystem service provision between two states of the reserve (i.e. presence and absence of feral livestock control) to estimate the net consequences of the hunting programme on ecosystem services provided by the forest. Based on this we estimate that cessation of feral livestock management would substantially reduce the net benefits provided by the site, including a 46 % reduction in nature-based tourism (from $419,000 to$228,000) and 36 % reduction in harvested wild meat (from $205,000 to$132,000). The overall net benefit generated from annual ecosystem service flows associated with livestock control in thereserve, minus the management cost, was $214,000 per year. We conclude that continued feral livestock control is important for maintaining the current level of ecosystem services provided by the reserve