DISTRIBUTION AND SEDIMENTS OF MANGROVE FORESTS IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Volume: 101Start Page: 35End Page: 4

Identification of fungi associated with soybeans and effective seed disinfection treatments

Sprouts can be a vehicle for the transmission of several pathogens capable of causing human illness, and the potential source of contamination is seed used for sprouting. The limited information about seed‐borne pathogens as well as their incidence on soybean seeds for soybean sprout industry led the objectives of this study that were to identify seed‐borne pathogens on commercial sprout soybean seeds and to evaluate different decontamination treatments on disinfection effectiveness and sprout quality. Seeds of “MFS‐561,” a sprout soybean cultivar, from three production regions were used in this study. The internal transcribed spacer (ITS1 and ITS2) DNA sequences of the isolated fungi from MFS‐561 seeds were used for species identification. Seven disinfection treatments were evaluated on their effectiveness on reducing fungal incidence and impact on sprout characteristics. Out of 55 fungal isolates obtained from the soybean seeds, seven species and six genera were identified. The most frequent genera across regions were Alternaria, Diaphorte, and Fusarium. The treatment of soaking seeds in 2% calcium hypochlorite for 10 min and 5% acetic acid for 2 min before sprouting were promising seed disinfection treatments as they significantly reduced fungi incidence without any negative effects on sprout quality

The Impact of Fisheries Discards on Scavengers in the Sea

A scavenger is an animal that feeds on dead animals (carrion) that it has not killed itself. Fisheries discards are often seen as an important food source for marine scavengers so the reduction of discards due to the Landing Obligation may affect their populations. The literature on scavenging in marine ecosystems is considerable, due to its importance in the trophic ecology of many species. Although discards undoubtedly contribute to these species’ food sources, few can be seen to be solely dependent on carrion (including discards). Ecosystem models predicted that discards contributed very little to the diet of scavengers at a regional scale. A reduction in discards through the Landing Obligation may therefore affect populations for a few species in some areas, but generally this is unlikely to be the case. But it is challenging to identify how important discards might be to scavengers, as they are taxonomically diverse and vary in the role they play in scavenging interactions