Human-wildlife interactions in the Western Terai of Nepal. An analysis of factors influencing conflicts between sympatric tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) and leopards (Panthera pardus fusca) and local communities around Bardia National Park, Nepal

Large carnivores and humans, along with their livestock, have co-existed for thousands of years. However, human population growth and an increase in economic activities are modifying the landscape for large carnivores and their prey. I studied the interaction between tiger and leopard in a human dominated landscape around Bardia National Park, Nepal. Due to the increase in number of tigers inside the park leopards may be pushed out of the park, where they become involved in conflicts while there may also be a spill-over of young tigers moving to the buffer zone. Tigers were not directly involved in conflict with people which were found from the presence of prey remains in their scats. Elephants were killing most of the humans whereas leopards were found to kill most of the livestock. For future conservation programs we need to focus on the conservation of tiger and leopard in human dominated landscape. Due to interaction with tigers, the leopards are living in close proximity with people and thereby get more involved in conflicts with local communities. Tigers enjoy a religious and cultural tolerance among the people living in the buffer zone whereas leopards lack such religious and cultural tolerance.Nuffic NFP-PhDEnvironmental Biolog

StomateTutor™: An Introduction to Stomatal Control of Gas Exchange in Plants

This is a HyperCard implementation which includes Pascal programs. HyperCard, which requires at least 1 Megabyte of memory, must be supplied by the user. The system disk must include the Geneva 10 pt font. When using, open the HyperCard stack StomateTutor which coordinates the remaining files (StomateTutorl-3 and the two Pascal programs). When you run StomateTutor the first time with your file configuration, you must locate the Pore Width and Diffusion applications used in Modules 1 and 2, respectively

Spray deposited copper zinc tin sulphide (Cu<inf>2</inf>ZnSnS<inf>4</inf>) film as a counter electrode in dye sensitized solar cells

Stoichiometric thin films of Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) were deposited by the spray technique on a FTO coated glass substrate, with post-annealing in a H2S environment to improve the film properties. CZTS films were used as a counter electrode (CE) in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells (DSCs) with N719 dye and an iodine electrolyte. The DSC of 0.25 cm2 area using a CE of CZTS film annealed in a H2S environment under AM 1.5G illumination (100 mW cm-2) exhibited a short circuit current density (JSC) = 18.63 mA cm-2, an open circuit voltage (VOC) = 0.65 V and a fill factor (FF) = 0.53, resulting in an overall power conversion efficiency (PCE) = 6.4%. While the DSC using as deposited CZTS film as a CE showed the PCE = 3.7% with JSC = 13.38 mA cm-2, VOC = 0.57 V and FF = 0.48. Thus, the spray deposited CZTS films can play an important role as a CE in the large area DSC fabrication. © the Partner Organisations 2014

Genetic resources conservation and strategies for enhanced utilization in crop improvement

Global food production will need to double to feed the more than 9 billion people by 2050..

Genetic Dissection of Drought and Heat Tolerance in Chickpea through Genome-Wide and Candidate Gene-Based Association Mapping Approaches

To understand the genetic basis of tolerance to drought and heat stresses in chickpea, a comprehensive association mapping approach has been undertaken. Phenotypic data were generated on the reference set (300 accessions, including 211 mini-core collection accessions) for drought tolerance related root traits, heat tolerance, yield and yield component traits from 1–7 seasons and 1–3 locations in India (Patancheru, Kanpur, Bangalore) and three locations in Africa (Nairobi, Egerton in Kenya and Debre Zeit in Ethiopia). Diversity Array Technology (DArT) markers equally distributed across chickpea genome were used to determine population structure and three sub-populations were identified using admixture model in STRUCTURE. The pairwise linkage disequilibrium (LD) estimated using the squared-allele frequency correlations (r2; when r2<0.20) was found to decay rapidly with the genetic distance of 5 cM. For establishing marker-trait associations (MTAs), both genome-wide and candidate gene-sequencing based association mapping approaches were conducted using 1,872 markers (1,072 DArTs, 651 single nucleotide polymorphisms [SNPs], 113 gene-based SNPs and 36 simple sequence repeats [SSRs]) and phenotyping data mentioned above employing mixed linear model (MLM) analysis with optimum compression with P3D method and kinship matrix. As a result, 312 significant MTAs were identified and a maximum number of MTAs (70) was identified for 100-seed weight. A total of 18 SNPs from 5 genes (ERECTA, 11 SNPs; ASR, 4 SNPs; DREB, 1 SNP; CAP2 promoter, 1 SNP and AMDH, 1SNP) were significantly associated with different traits. This study provides significant MTAs for drought and heat tolerance in chickpea that can be used, after validation, in molecular breeding for developing superior varieties with enhanced drought and heat tolerance

Author Correction: A chickpea genetic variation map based on the sequencing of 3,366 genomes

In Extended Data Fig. 1 of this Article, the labels ‘Market class’ and ‘Biological status’ were inadvertently swapped. In the corresponding figure legend, “Track 1: Biological status; Track 2: Market class;” should have been “Track 1: Market class; Track 2: Biological status;”. The original Article has been corrected online

Pearl millet genome sequence provides a resource to improve agronomic traits in arid environments

Pearl millet [Pennisetum glaucum (L.) R. Br., syn. Cenchrus americanus (L.) Morrone], is a staple food for over 90 million poor farmers in arid and semi-arid regions of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. We report the ~1.79 Gb genome sequence of reference genotype Tift 23D2B1-P1-P5, which contains an estimated 38,579 genes. Resequencing analysis of 994 (963 inbreds of the highly cross-pollinated cultigen, and 31 wild accessions) provides insights into population structure, genetic diversity, evolution and domestication history. In addition we demonstrated the use of re-sequence data for establishing marker trait associations, genomic selection and prediction of hybrid performance and defining heterotic pools. The genome wide variations and abiotic stress proteome data are useful resources for pearl millet improvement through deploying modern breeding tools for accelerating genetic gains in pearl millet.publishersversionPeer reviewe