Genetic Difference of Five Beef Cattle Breeds Characterized by Genome-wide SNPs and Haplotypes

The objective of this study was to characterize breed differences using SNP available on commonly-used marker panels compared to using genome-wide SNP haplotypes derived from the same markers. The percentage of breed-specific segregating haplotypes was much higher than that of SNPs. Principal components of haplotypes characterized breed difference better than SNP genotypes. Results indicate that haplotypes characterize breed differences more adequately than SNP genotypes and hence offer promise to improve genomic prediction and fine mapping in multi breed population

Improved Accuracy of Across-breed Genomic Prediction Using Haplotypes in Beef Cattle Populations

Genomic prediction uses a reference population of animals with SNP genotypes and phenotypes to predict the merit of selection candidates that typically do not have observed phenotypes. Accuracy of genomic prediction from models that fitted 50K SNP genotypes was low when selection candidates were from a breed only distantly related with the breeds in the reference population. That accuracy was not improved by increasing SNP density from 50K to a ten-fold higher density using imputation. This indicates that the accuracy of genomic prediction mainly came from family-wise co-segregation information. In this study, a genomic prediction model that fitted genome-wide 100 kilo-bp (Kbp) haplotypes improved accuracy for breeds that were not in the reference population. The haplotype model is a more accurate alternative to the SNP model for genomic prediction when animals of the same breed as the prediction candidates are not available for the reference population

A Study of the Impact of Tourism Economic and Non-economic Benefits on Residents\u27 Pro-Environmental Behaviors in Community-based Ecotourism

A survey was conducted on 362 residents of a classical ecotourism destination in China to explore the impacts of both tourism economic and non-economic benefits on residents’ pro-environmental behaviors. The results of Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) indicated that tourism economic and non-economic benefits impacted on residents’ pro-environmental behaviors through perceived positive tourism impact as a mediator. These findings enriched literatures in ecotourism and had managerial value for the practitioners in domestic ecotourism community

A novel Mo-W interlayer approach for CVD diamond deposition on steel

Steel is the most widely used material in engineering for its cost/performance ratio and coatings are routinely applied on its surface to further improve its properties. Diamond coated steel parts are an option for many demanding industrial applications through prolonging the lifetime of steel parts, enhancement of tool performance as well as the reduction of wear rates. Direct deposition of diamond on steel using conventional chemical vapour deposition (CVD) processes is known to give poor results due to the preferential formation of amorphous carbon on iron, nickel and other elements as well as stresses induced from the significant difference in the thermal expansion coefficients of those materials. This article reports a novel approach of deposition of nanocrystalline diamond coatings on high-speed steel (M42) substrates using a multi-structured molybdenum (Mo) - tungsten (W) interlayer to form steel/Mo/Mo-W/W/diamond sandwich structures which overcome the adhesion problem related to direct magnetron sputtering deposition of pure tungsten. Surface, interface and tribology properties were evaluated to understand the role of such an interlayer structure. The multi-structured Mo-W interlayer has been proven to improve the adhesion between diamond films and steel substrates by acting as an effective diffusion barrier during the CVD diamond deposition

Heterospecific alarm-call recognition in two warbler hosts of common cuckoos

International audienceSpecies facing similar selection pressures should recognize heterospecific alarm signals. However, no study has so far examined heterospecific alarm-call recognition in response to parasitism by cuckoos. In this study, we tested whether two sympatric host species of the common cuckoo Cuculus canorus, Oriental reed warbler Acrocephalus orientalis (ORW, main host), and black-browed reed warbler Acrocephalus bistrigiceps (BRW, rare host), could recognize each other's alarm calls in response to cuckoos. Dummies of common cuckoo (parasite) and Eurasian sparrowhawk Accipiter nisus (predator) were used to induce and record alarm calls of the two warbler species, respectively. In the conspecific alarm-call playback experiments, ORW responded more strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than to sparrowhawk alarm calls, while BRW responded less strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than to sparrowhawk alarm calls. In the heterospecific alarm-call playback experiments, both ORW and BRW responded less strongly to cuckoo alarm calls than sparrowhawk alarm calls. BRW seemed to learn the association between parasite-related alarm calls of the ORW and the cuckoo by observing the process of ORW attacking cuckoos. In contrast, alarm calls of BRW to cuckoos were rarely recorded in most cases. BRW with low parasite pressure still developed recognition of heterospecific parasite-related alarm call. Unintended receivers in the same community should recognize heterospecific alarm calls precisely to extract valuable information