Cross inoculation of rumen fluid to improve dry matter disappearance and its effect on bacterial composition using an in vitro batch culture model

Environmental pressures of ruminant production could be reduced by improving digestive efficiency. Previous in vivo attempts to manipulate the rumen microbial community have largely been unsuccessful probably due to the influencing effect of the host. Using an in vitro consecutive batch culture technique, the aim of this study was to determine whether manipulation was possible once the bacterial community was uncoupled from the host. Two cross inoculation experiments were performed. Rumen fluid was collected at time of slaughter from 11 Holstein-Friesian steers from the same herd for Experiment 1, and in Experiment 2 were collected from 11 Charolais cross steers sired by the same bull and raised on a forage only diet on the same farm from birth. The two fluids that differed most in their in vitro dry matter disappearance (IVDMD; “Good,” “Bad”) were selected for their respective experiment. The fluids were also mixed (1:1, “Mix”) and used to inoculate the model. In Experiment 1, the mixed rumen fluid resulted in an IVDMD midway between that of the two rumen fluids from which it was made for the first 24 h batch culture (34, 29, 20 g per 100 g DM for the Good, Mix, and Bad, respectively, P < 0.001) which was reflected in fermentation parameters recorded. No effect of cross inoculation was seen for Experiment 2, where the Mix performed most similarly to the Bad. In both experiments, IVDMD increased with consecutive culturing as the microbial population adapted to the in vitro conditions and differences between the fluids were lost. The improved performance with each consecutive batch culture was associated with reduced bacterial diversity. Increases in the genus Pseudobutyrivibrio were identified, which may be, at least in part, responsible for the improved digestive efficiency observed, whilst Prevotella declined by 50% over the study period. It is likely that along with host factors, there are individual factors within each community that prevent other microbes from establishing. Whilst we were unable to manipulate the bacterial community, uncoupling the microbiota from the host resulted in changes in the community, becoming less diverse with time, likely due to environmental heterogeneity, and more efficient at digesting DM

Producing 20-month old beef steers off annual pasture

A recent Mt Barker experiment compared two systems of fodder conservation with continuous grazing, using two types of steers, at three stocking rates. Year-round performance, carcass composition, and resulting costs and returns per hectare were assessed. Production per hectare was greatest from crossbred steers at the intermediate stocking rate with either type of fodder conservation

Copper requirements for the south-eastern wheatbelt

FARM experience and the results of five years intensive research have shown copper deficiency to be widespread in the south-eastern wheatbelt. On many areas of the south-eastern wheatbelt, copper deficiency is likely to restrict wheat yields

A systematic review of reviews identifying UK validated dietary assessment tools for inclusion on an interactive guided website for researchers: www.nutritools.org

Background: Health researchers may struggle to choose suitable validated dietary assessment tools (DATs) for their target population. The aim of this review was to identify and collate information on validated UK DATs and validation studies for inclusion on a website to support researchers to choose appropriate DATs. Design: A systematic review of reviews of DATs was undertaken. DATs validated in UK populations were extracted from the studies identified. A searchable website was designed to display these data. Additionally, mean differences and limits of agreement between test and comparison methods were summarized by a method, weighting by sample size. Results: Over 900 validation results covering 5 life stages, 18 nutrients, 6 dietary assessment methods, and 9 validation method types were extracted from 63 validated DATs which were identified from 68 reviews. These were incorporated into www.nutritools.org. Limits of agreement were determined for about half of validations. Thirty four DATs were FFQs. Only 17 DATs were validated against biomarkers, and only 19 DATs were validated in infant/children/adolescents. Conclusions: The interactive www.nutritools.org website holds extensive validation data identified from this review and can be used to guide researchers to critically compare and choose a suitable DAT for their research question, leading to improvement of nutritional epidemiology research

High Hemocyte Load Is Associated with Increased Resistance against Parasitoids in Drosophila suzukii, a Relative of D. melanogaster

Among the most common parasites of Drosophila in nature are parasitoid wasps, which lay their eggs in fly larvae and pupae. D. melanogaster larvae can mount a cellular immune response against wasp eggs, but female wasps inject venom along with their eggs to block this immune response. Genetic variation in flies for immune resistance against wasps and genetic variation in wasps for virulence against flies largely determines the outcome of any fly-wasp interaction. Interestingly, up to 90% of the variation in fly resistance against wasp parasitism has been linked to a very simple mechanism: flies with increased constitutive blood cell (hemocyte) production are more resistant. However, this relationship has not been tested for Drosophila hosts outside of the melanogaster subgroup, nor has it been tested across a diversity of parasitoid wasp species and strains. We compared hemocyte levels in two fly species from different subgroups, D. melanogaster and D. suzukii, and found that D. suzukii constitutively produces up to five times more hemocytes than D. melanogaster. Using a panel of 24 parasitoid wasp strains representing fifteen species, four families, and multiple virulence strategies, we found that D. suzukii was significantly more resistant to wasp parasitism than D. melanogaster. Thus, our data suggest that the relationship between hemocyte production and wasp resistance is general. However, at least one sympatric wasp species was a highly successful infector of D. suzukii, suggesting specialists can overcome the general resistance afforded to hosts by excessive hemocyte production. Given that D. suzukii is an emerging agricultural pest, identification of the few parasitoid wasps that successfully infect D. suzukii may have value for biocontrol

Agriculture: Steps to sustainable livestock

With improved breeding and cultivation, ruminant animals can yield food that is better for people and the planet, say Mark C. Eisler, Michael R. F. Lee and colleagues

Diversity, distribution and conservation of the terrestrial reptiles of Oman (Sauropsida, Squamata)

All authors: Salvador Carranza , Meritxell Xipell, Pedro Tarroso, Andrew Gardner, Edwin Nicholas Arnold, Michael D. Robinson, Marc Simó-Riudalbas, Raquel Vasconcelos, Philip de Pous, Fèlix Amat, Jiří Šmíd, Roberto Sindaco, Margarita Metallinou †, Johannes Els, Juan Manuel Pleguezuelos, Luis Machado, David Donaire, Gabriel Martínez, Joan Garcia-Porta, Tomáš Mazuch, Thomas Wilms, Jürgen Gebhart, Javier Aznar, Javier Gallego, Bernd-Michael Zwanzig, Daniel Fernández-Guiberteau, Theodore Papenfuss, Saleh Al Saadi, Ali Alghafri, Sultan Khalifa, Hamed Al Farqani, Salim Bait Bilal, Iman Sulaiman Alazri, Aziza Saud Al Adhoobi, Zeyana Salim Al Omairi, Mohammed Al Shariani, Ali Al Kiyumi, Thuraya Al Sariri, Ahmed Said Al Shukaili, Suleiman Nasser Al Akhzami.In the present work, we use an exceptional database including 5,359 records of 101 species of Oman’s terrestrial reptiles together with spatial tools to infer the spatial patterns of species richness and endemicity, to infer the habitat preference of each species and to better define conservation priorities, with especial focus on the effectiveness of the protected areas in preserving this unique arid fauna. Our results indicate that the sampling effort is not only remarkable from a taxonomic point of view, with multiple observations for most species, but also for the spatial coverage achieved. The observations are distributed almost continuously across the two-dimensional climatic space of Oman defined by the mean annual temperature and the total annual precipitation and across the Principal Component Analysis (PCA) of the multivariate climatic space and are well represented within 17 out of the 20 climatic clusters grouping 10% of the explained climatic variance defined by PC1 and PC2. Species richness is highest in the Hajar and Dhofar Mountains, two of the most biodiverse areas of the Arabian Peninsula, and endemic species richness is greatest in the Jebel Akhdar, the highest part of the Hajar Mountains. Oman’s 22 protected areas cover only 3.91% of the country, including within their limits 63.37% of terrestrial reptiles and 50% of all endemics. Our analyses show that large areas of the climatic space of Oman lie outside protected areas and that seven of the 20 climatic clusters are not protected at all. The results of the gap analysis indicate that most of the species are below the conservation target of 17% or even the less restrictive 12% of their total area within a protected area in order to be considered adequately protected. Therefore, an evaluation of the coverage of the current network of protected areas and the identification of priority protected areas for reptiles using reserve design algorithms are urgently needed. Our study also shows that more than half of the species are still pending of a definitive evaluation by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).This work was funded by grants CGL2012-36970, CGL2015-70390-P from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (cofunded by FEDER) to SC, the project Field study for the conservation of reptiles in Oman, Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs, Oman (Ref: 22412027) to SC and grant 2014-SGR-1532 from the Secretaria d'Universitats i Recerca del Departament d'Economia i Coneixement de la Generalitat de Catalunya to SC. MSR is funded by a FPI grant from the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain (BES-2013-064248); RV, PT and LM were funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) through post-doc grants (SFRH/BPD/79913/2011) to RV, (SFRH/BPD/93473/2013) to PT and PhD grant (SFRH/BD/89820/2012) to LM, financed by Programa Operacional Potencial Humano (POPH) – Quadro de Referência Estrategico Nacional (QREN) from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministerio da Educação e Ciência

Fauna Europaea: Diptera -Brachycera

Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Pape, T., Beuk, P., Pont, A. C., Shatalkin, A. I., Ozerov, A. L., Woźnica, A. J., ... de Jong, Y. (2015). Fauna Europaea: 3, [e4187]. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.3.e4187 General rights It is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. Abstract Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including important synonyms) of all extant multicellular European terrestrial and freshwater animals and their geographical distribution at the level of countries and major islands (east of the Urals and excluding the Caucasus region). The Fauna Europaea project comprises about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. Fauna Europaea represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing taxonomic specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many user communities in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. The Diptera-Brachycera is one of the 58 Fauna Europaea major taxonomic groups, and data have been compiled by a network of 55 specialists. Within the two-winged insects (Diptera), the Brachycera constitute a monophyletic group, which is generally given rank of suborder. The Brachycera may be classified into the probably paraphyletic &apos;lower brachyceran grade&apos; and the monophyletic Eremoneura. The latter contains the Empidoidea, the Apystomyioidea with a single Nearctic species, and the Cyclorrhapha, which in turn is divided into the paraphyletic &apos;aschizan grade&apos; and the monophyletic Schizophora. The latter is traditionally divided into the paraphyletic &apos;acalyptrate grade&apos; and the monophyletic Calyptratae. Our knowledge of the European fauna of Diptera-Brachycera varies tremendously among families, from the reasonably well known hoverflies (Syrphidae) to the extremely poorly known scuttle flies (Phoridae). There has been a steady growth in our knowledge of European Diptera for the last two centuries, with no apparent slow down, but there is a shift towards a larger fraction of the new species being found among the families of the nematoceran grade (lower Diptera), which due to a larger number of small-sized species may be considered as taxonomically more challenging. Most of Europe is highly industrialised and has a high human population density, and the more fertile habitats are extensively cultivated. This has undoubtedly increased the extinction risk for numerous species of brachyceran flies, yet with the recent re-discovery of Thyreophora cynophila (Panzer), there are no known cases of extinction at a European level. However, few national Red Lists have extensive information on Diptera. For the Diptera-Brachycera, data from 96 families containing 11,751 species are included in this paper

The evolutionary pattern of host use in the Bombyliidae (Diptera): A diverse family of parasitoid flies

The larval host associations and mode of parasitism of Bombyliidae (bee flies) are summarized and analysed within an evolutionary framework. We discuss difficulties in extracting information from the (almost 1000) host records, noting that most observations are made by chance, often imprecise, and distributed unevenly across bombyliid taxa. These caveats aside, the vast majority of Bombyliidae are ectoparasitoid; endoparasitoids are known in only three tribes belonging to two distantly related subfamilies, the Toxophorinae (Gerontini and Systropodini) and Anthracinae (Villini). The recorded host range of Bombyliidae spans seven insect Orders and the Araneae; almost half of all records are from bees and wasps (Hymenoptera). No Bombyliidae have evolved structures to inject eggs directly into the host as is the case in many hymenopterous parasitoids. Bombyliid larvae usually exhibit hyper-metamorphosis, and contact their host while it is in the larval stage, Bee fly larvae consume the host when it is in a quiescent stage such as the mature larva, prepupa or pupa. Records of hyperparasitism by Bombyliidae are uncommon, most occurring in genera of the Anthracinae. All bombyliids recorded as hyperparasitoids do not appear to have evolved in any close association with the primary host, and are best termed pseudohyperparasitoids. Both facultative and obligate pseudohyperparasitism has been recorded. Bombyliidae are difficult to place in the koinobiont/idiobiont classification used most extensively in Hymenoptera but they share most features of koinobionts. Provision-directed eleptoparasitism has been recorded in one genus. We propose an evolutionary scenario progressing from an ancestral substrate-zone free-living predator to ectoparasitoid, a broadening of host range to include the consumption of orthopteran egg pods, and the independent development of endoparasitism in two lineages. The suggestion that host range narrows as the intimacy of encounter between female parasitoid and host increases is supported in the Bombyliidae. Amongst the basal subfamilies which are parasitoids, host range is narrowest in the Toxophorinae. In the more derived subfamilies host range is generally broad, and is dictated by ecological context rather than host phylogeny. Bombyliidae violate the prediction of increased species richness in parasitic groups, and the broad host range of most bee flies is a possible explanation