Economic feasibility of diets containing different nitrogen sources as a function of weight gain in Saanen breed goats / Viabilidade Econômica de dietas contendo diferentes fontes de nitrogênio em função do ganho de peso de caprinos da raça Saanen

The use of a low cost protein input results in improvements in animal zootechnical indices. The aim of this study was to evaluate the cost of diets containing different nitrogen sources as a function of weight gain in Saanen goats. Eighteen 150-day-old Saanen goats were randomly divided into two groups: control group (CG) and urea group (UG). At the beginning of the experiment and every 7 days, before feeding, the animals were weighed on a mechanical platform scale to obtain live weight over a period of 121 days. The prices of the dietary ingredients were obtained from the local market of Seropédica - RJ, from April to June 2019. For statistical analysis, the GraphPad PRISM 5® software was used. The use of soybean meal or urea in the diet did not influence animal performance in relation to daily weight gain. The difference in values may not appear to be attractive, but the amount of urea used in ruminant diets is much smaller when compared to the amount of soybean meal, which reflects in the final diet price, making urea make a source more viable for the producer

Quality of postharvest strawberries: comparative effect of fungal chitosan gel, nanoparticles and gel enriched with edible nanoparticle coatings

This study compared, for the first time, the postharvest conservative action of edible fungal chitosan coatings (gel, nanoparticles and gel-nanoparticle) on the physico-chemical, sensorial and microbiological characteristics of strawberries. The nanoparticles were prepared by an ionic gelation method and characterized by dynamic light scattering and scanning electron microscopy. The antioxidant (DPPH* and ABTS*) activity of the edible coatings and the antimicrobial (macrodilution method) action against phytopathogenic fungi were verified. The nanoparticles had a size of 331.1 nm and a zeta potential of + 34 mV. The gel, nanoparticles and gel+nanoparticles exhibited minimum inhibitory concentration values ranging from 4 to 5, 1.5 to 2.5 and 1.0 + 0.5 to 2.0 + 1.5 g.L−1, respectively. All the edible coatings exhibited antifungal action. All the coatings had high scavenging activity, especially the gel edible coating. The coatings, especially the gel+nanoparticles, decreased the weight loss, microbiological growth, soluble solids, maturity index and moisture loss of the strawberry and preserved the pH values, anthocyanin content, titratable acidity and sensory characteristics. Therefore, the use of chitosan edible coating containing nanoparticles can be a promising strategy to improve the post-harvest quality of strawberries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Rarity of monodominance in hyperdiverse Amazonian forests.

Tropical forests are known for their high diversity. Yet, forest patches do occur in the tropics where a single tree species is dominant. Such "monodominant" forests are known from all of the main tropical regions. For Amazonia, we sampled the occurrence of monodominance in a massive, basin-wide database of forest-inventory plots from the Amazon Tree Diversity Network (ATDN). Utilizing a simple defining metric of at least half of the trees ≥ 10 cm diameter belonging to one species, we found only a few occurrences of monodominance in Amazonia, and the phenomenon was not significantly linked to previously hypothesized life history traits such wood density, seed mass, ectomycorrhizal associations, or Rhizobium nodulation. In our analysis, coppicing (the formation of sprouts at the base of the tree or on roots) was the only trait significantly linked to monodominance. While at specific locales coppicing or ectomycorrhizal associations may confer a considerable advantage to a tree species and lead to its monodominance, very few species have these traits. Mining of the ATDN dataset suggests that monodominance is quite rare in Amazonia, and may be linked primarily to edaphic factors

A Importância da Biossegurança na Produção e Utilização de Produtos Naturais e Fitoterápicos/ The Importance of Biosafety in the Production and Use of Natural and Herbal Products

As plantas medicinais vêm sendo utilizadas desde os tempos mais remotos e tem um papel relevante na terapêutica de diversas doenças, no entanto, o uso indiscriminado oferece riscos à saúde humana, uma vez que, essas plantas podem ser consideradas tóxicas. Dessa forma, é importante que tanto os profissionais quanto os consumidores conheçam os riscos relacionados à exposição a agentes potencialmente nocivos. Por isso, a manipulação, produção e utilização desses fitoterápicos devem estar de acordo com as boas práticas, levando em consideração a biossegurança. O objetivo do presente estudo foi descrever a importância da biossegurança na utilização de produtos naturais e fitoterápicos, ressaltando os riscos da falta de conhecimento das normas de biossegurança. O estudo consistiu em uma revisão narrativa realizada por meio de consultas nas bases dados, Biblioteca Virtual em Saúde (BVS), SciELO e Periódicos CAPES sobre a biossegurança na utilização de produtos naturais e fitoterápicos. O levantamento bibliográfico baseou-se em artigos científicos completos publicados nos idiomas, português, inglês e espanhol, com dimensão temporal entre 2010 e 2019. A utilização de produtos naturais fabricados a partir de plantas é de relevante importância para assegurar o uso adequado dos mesmos, sendo necessária a implantação de práticas comunicativas que visem informar a população sobre o uso de plantas medicinais e fitoterápicos de modo apropriado bem como estabelecer métodos de fiscalização e biossegurança.

Pervasive gaps in Amazonian ecological research

Biodiversity loss is one of the main challenges of our time,1,2 and attempts to address it require a clear un derstanding of how ecological communities respond to environmental change across time and space.3,4 While the increasing availability of global databases on ecological communities has advanced our knowledge of biodiversity sensitivity to environmental changes,5–7 vast areas of the tropics remain understudied.8–11 In the American tropics, Amazonia stands out as the world’s most diverse rainforest and the primary source of Neotropical biodiversity,12 but it remains among the least known forests in America and is often underrepre sented in biodiversity databases.13–15 To worsen this situation, human-induced modifications16,17 may elim inate pieces of the Amazon’s biodiversity puzzle before we can use them to understand how ecological com munities are responding. To increase generalization and applicability of biodiversity knowledge,18,19 it is thus crucial to reduce biases in ecological research, particularly in regions projected to face the most pronounced environmental changes. We integrate ecological community metadata of 7,694 sampling sites for multiple or ganism groups in a machine learning model framework to map the research probability across the Brazilian Amazonia, while identifying the region’s vulnerability to environmental change. 15%–18% of the most ne glected areas in ecological research are expected to experience severe climate or land use changes by 2050. This means that unless we take immediate action, we will not be able to establish their current status, much less monitor how it is changing and what is being lostinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

Aim: Amazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types. Location: Amazonia. Taxon: Angiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots). Methods: Data for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran\u27s eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny. Results: In the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R$^{2}$ = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R$^{2}$ = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types. Main Conclusion: Numerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Geography and ecology shape the phylogenetic composition of Amazonian tree communities

AimAmazonia hosts more tree species from numerous evolutionary lineages, both young and ancient, than any other biogeographic region. Previous studies have shown that tree lineages colonized multiple edaphic environments and dispersed widely across Amazonia, leading to a hypothesis, which we test, that lineages should not be strongly associated with either geographic regions or edaphic forest types.LocationAmazonia.TaxonAngiosperms (Magnoliids; Monocots; Eudicots).MethodsData for the abundance of 5082 tree species in 1989 plots were combined with a mega-phylogeny. We applied evolutionary ordination to assess how phylogenetic composition varies across Amazonia. We used variation partitioning and Moran's eigenvector maps (MEM) to test and quantify the separate and joint contributions of spatial and environmental variables to explain the phylogenetic composition of plots. We tested the indicator value of lineages for geographic regions and edaphic forest types and mapped associations onto the phylogeny.ResultsIn the terra firme and várzea forest types, the phylogenetic composition varies by geographic region, but the igapó and white-sand forest types retain a unique evolutionary signature regardless of region. Overall, we find that soil chemistry, climate and topography explain 24% of the variation in phylogenetic composition, with 79% of that variation being spatially structured (R2 = 19% overall for combined spatial/environmental effects). The phylogenetic composition also shows substantial spatial patterns not related to the environmental variables we quantified (R2 = 28%). A greater number of lineages were significant indicators of geographic regions than forest types.Main ConclusionNumerous tree lineages, including some ancient ones (>66 Ma), show strong associations with geographic regions and edaphic forest types of Amazonia. This shows that specialization in specific edaphic environments has played a long-standing role in the evolutionary assembly of Amazonian forests. Furthermore, many lineages, even those that have dispersed across Amazonia, dominate within a specific region, likely because of phylogenetically conserved niches for environmental conditions that are prevalent within regions

Mapping density, diversity and species-richness of the Amazon tree flora

Using 2.046 botanically-inventoried tree plots across the largest tropical forest on Earth, we mapped tree species-diversity and tree species-richness at 0.1-degree resolution, and investigated drivers for diversity and richness. Using only location, stratified by forest type, as predictor, our spatial model, to the best of our knowledge, provides the most accurate map of tree diversity in Amazonia to date, explaining approximately 70% of the tree diversity and species-richness. Large soil-forest combinations determine a significant percentage of the variation in tree species-richness and tree alpha-diversity in Amazonian forest-plots. We suggest that the size and fragmentation of these systems drive their large-scale diversity patterns and hence local diversity. A model not using location but cumulative water deficit, tree density, and temperature seasonality explains 47% of the tree species-richness in the terra-firme forest in Amazonia. Over large areas across Amazonia, residuals of this relationship are small and poorly spatially structured, suggesting that much of the residual variation may be local. The Guyana Shield area has consistently negative residuals, showing that this area has lower tree species-richness than expected by our models. We provide extensive plot meta-data, including tree density, tree alpha-diversity and tree species-richness results and gridded maps at 0.1-degree resolution