Anelídeos poliquetos da região de Ubatuba (SP): padrões de distribuição geográfica

<abstract language="eng">This work constitutes a systematic survey of the Annelida Polychaeta from the sublitoral of the São Paulo State coast (Ubatuba), southeast Brazil. From 105 identified species, 20 are new records for the brazilian coast. An analysis of affinity degree between the fauna of the studied region and of the adjacents biogeographic provinces shows that 25,5% of the species are endemic for the Paulista Province, 19,0% amphi-american, 17,0% cosmopolite and 16,8% amphi-atlantic. An affinity with species from the Patagonian (7,4%) and Caribbean (2,0%) Provinces is smaller than that of other authors, for the southeast Brazilian coast

Biotechnology approaches to overcome biotic and abiotic stress constraints in legumes

Biotic and abiotic stresses cause significant yield losses in legumes and can significantly affect their productivity. Biotechnology tools such as marker-assisted breeding, tissue culture, in vitro mutagenesis and genetic transformation can contribute to solve or reduce some of these constraints. However, only limited success has been achieved so far. The emergence of “omic” technologies and the establishment of model legume plants such as Medicago truncatula and Lotus japonicus are promising strategies for understanding the molecular genetic basis of stress resistance, which is an important bottleneck for molecular breeding. Understanding the mechanisms that regulate the expression of stress-related genes is a fundamental issue in plant biology and will be necessary for the genetic improvement of legumes. In this review, we describe the current status of biotechnology approaches in relation to biotic and abiotic stresses in legumes and how these useful tools could be used to improve resistance to important constraints affecting legume crops.E. Prats is funded by an European Marie Curie Reintegration Grant, N. Rispail by (FP5) Eufaba project. Our work in this area is supported by Spanish CICYT project AGL-2002-03248 and European Union project FP6-2002-FOOD-1-506223. K. Singh’s work in this area is supported in part by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) and the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) in Australia.Peer reviewe