Collaborative forest management in Nepal: Tenure, governance and contestations

Collaborative forest management (CFM) is a ‘community-based’ forest tenure regime that works in partnership between the central government, local government and local forest user groups in Nepal’s Terai, particularly in the management of large, contiguous forests. It has been in practice since the early 2000s in the form of ‘pilot initiatives’ and is gradually receiving greater legal attention. Through our own experiences, available literature and policy reviews, we document the evolutionary history of Terai forest and CFM’s current issues. We found that the management aspects of the Terai forests have been weak throughout its history. We also found a number of issues and challenges in the implementation of CFM. Some of the prominent issues include ambiguity in tenure rights and security, lack of appropriate and uncontested policy provisions for cost and bene t sharing among collaborators, limited decision-making space for forest-managing communities and local governments, and limited capacity of collaborators for the productive management of forests. We suggest tenure reform in terms of legal, institutional, technical and financial arrangements, so as to make CFM effective forest management in the Terai

Contrasting selective patterns across the segmented genome of bluetongue virus in a global reassortment hotspot

For segmented viruses, rapid genomic and phenotypic changes can occur through the process of reassortment, whereby co-infecting strains exchange entire segments creating novel progeny virus genotypes. However, for many viruses with segmented genomes, this process and its effect on transmission dynamics remain poorly understood. Here, we assessed the consequences of reassortment for selection on viral diversity through time using bluetongue virus (BTV), a segmented arbovirus that is the causative agent of a major disease of ruminants. We analysed ninety-two BTV genomes isolated across four decades from India, where BTV diversity, and thus opportunities for reassortment, are among the highest in the world. Our results point to frequent reassortment and segment turnover, some of which appear to be driven by selective sweeps and serial hitchhiking. Particularly, we found evidence for a recent selective sweep affecting segment 5 and its encoded NS1 protein that has allowed a single variant to essentially invade the full range of BTV genomic backgrounds and serotypes currently circulating in India. In contrast, diversifying selection was found to play an important role in maintaining genetic diversity in genes encoding outer surface proteins involved in virus interactions (VP2 and VP5, encoded by segments 2 and 6, respectively). Our results support the role of reassortment in driving rapid phenotypic change in segmented viruses and generate testable hypotheses for in vitro experiments aiming at understanding the specific mechanisms underlying differences in fitness and selection across viral genomes

Purification and preliminary X-ray crystallographic studies of β-microseminoprotein from human seminal plasma

The preliminary X-ray data of β-microseminoprotein isolated from human seminal plasma at 2.4 Å resolution are reported

Crystal structure of a highly acidic neurotoxin from scorpion Buthus tamulus at 2.2 Å resolution reveals novel structural features

The crystal structure of a highly acidic neurotoxin from the scorpion Buthus tamulus has been determined at 2.2 Å resolution. The amino acid sequence determination shows that the polypeptide chain has 64 amino acid residues. The pI measurement gave a value of 4.3 which is one of the lowest pI values reported so far for a scorpion toxin. As observed in other α-toxins, it contains four disulphide bridges, Cys12-Cys63, Cys16-Cys36, Cys22-Cys46, and Cys26-Cys48. The crystal structure reveals the presence of two crystallographically independent molecules in the asymmetric unit. The conformations of two molecules are identical with an r.m.s. value of 0.3 Å for their C<SUP>α</SUP> tracings. The overall fold of the toxin is very similar to other scorpion α-toxins. It is a βαββ protein. The β-sheet involves residues Glu2-Ile6 (strand β1), Asp32-Trp39 (strand β3) and Val45-Val55 (strand β4). The single α-helix formed is by residues Asn19-Asp28 (α2). The structure shows a trans peptide bond between residues 9 and 10 in the five-membered reverse turn Asp8-Cys12. This suggests that this toxin belongs to classical α-toxin subfamily. The surface features of the present toxin are highly characteristic, the first (A-site) has residues, Phe18, Trp38 and Trp39 that protrude outwardly presumably to interact with its receptor. There is another novel face (N-site) of this neurotoxin that contains several negatively charged residues such as, Glu2, Asp3, Asp32, Glu49 and Asp50 which are clustered in a small region of the toxin structure. On yet another face (P-site) in a triangular arrangement, with respect to the above two faces there are several positively charged residues, Arg58, Lys62 and Arg64 that also protrude outwardly for a potentially potent interaction with other molecules. This toxin with three strong features appears to be one of the most toxic molecules reported so far. In this sense, it may be a new subclass of neurotoxins with the largest number of hot spots

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Not AvailableErratic rainfall leading to flash flooding causes huge yield losses in lowland rice. The traditional varieties and landraces of rice possess variable levels of tolerance to submergence stress, but gene discovery and utilization of these resources has been limited to the Sub1A-1 allele from variety FR13A. Therefore, we analysed the allelic sequence variation in three Sub1 genes in a panel of 179 rice genotypes and its association with submergence tolerance. Population structure and diversity analysis based on a 36-plex genome wide genic-SNP assay grouped these genotypes into two major categories representing Indica and Japonica cultivar groups with further sub-groupings into Indica, Aus, Deepwater and Aromatic- Japonica cultivars. Targetted re-sequencing of the Sub1A, Sub1B and Sub1C genes identfied 7, 7 and 38 SNPs making 8, 9 and 67 SNP haplotypes, respectively. Haplotype networks and phylogenic analysis revealed evolution of Sub1B and Sub1A genes by tandem duplication and divergence of the ancestral Sub1C gene in that order. The alleles of Sub1 genes in tolerant reference variety FR13A seem to have evolved most recently. However, no consistent association could be found between the Sub1 allelic variation and submergence tolerance probably due to low minor allele frequencies and presence of exceptions to the known Sub1A-1 association in the genotype panel. We identified 18 cultivars with non-Sub1A-1 source of submergence tolerance which after further mapping and validation in biparental populations will be useful for development of superior flood tolerant rice cultivars.Not Availabl