Science and policy in the Amazon have focused largely on forests and their associated biodiversity and carbon stocks.
and established a network of protected areas largely designed to preserve forests and their biodiversity.
and species commented Robin Abell the Senior Freshwater Conservation Biologist at World Wildlife Fund. The Madeira river basin for example is threatened by oil exploration deforestation
and cooler sequestering carbon protecting biodiversity and air quality and preventing soil erosion. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biomed Central Limited.
#Corn cobs eyed for bioenergy productioncorn crop residues are often left on harvested fields to protect soil quality
This work led by Agricultural research service (ARS) soil scientist Brian Wienhold supports the USDA priority of developing new sources of bioenergy.
and used for bioenergy feedstock without significantly interfering with the role of crop residues in protecting soils.
and Southern Americaa team of scientists have described twenty four new species of dipterans belonging to Quichuana genus of which only a further 24 species were known.
The researchers including two Spanish biologists have been studying the forests of Central and Southern America for ten years and they have published now their results in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
A ten-year study in forests of the American continent has resulted in the description of 24 new insect species from the Quichuana genus that are also known as'flower flies'.
and this genus belongs to the Syrphidae family which is a group with similar characteristics to that of bees and wasps but with a different taxonomic order.
As explained by Marã a à ngeles Marcos-Garcã a researcher at the Ibero-American Biodiversity Centre (CIBIO) of the University of Alicante
and one of the authors of the study the species of the Quichuana genus are not well known as they live in tropical forest areas where insect studies are scarce.
and provide useful data for supporting conservation measures in those areas that are home to such high levels of biodiversity explains the biologist.
Double the amount of Quichuana speciesthanks to these studies 24 more species have been discovered meaning that the number of documented species in this genus has doubled.
and they carry out very important biological functions such as pollination nutrient recycling and biological control of plagues as their larvae feed on other insects that are damaging to crops
and ornamental plants such as plant louses. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Plataforma SINC.
#West Nile virus spreading due to mosquitoes in orchards and vineyards, experts warnwashington State university researchers have linked orchards
and vineyards with a greater prevalence of West Nile virus in mosquitoes and the insects'ability to spread the virus to birds horses and people.
The finding reported in the latest issue of the journal PLOS ONE is the most finely scaled look at the interplay between land use and the virus's activity in key hosts.
Since it was seen first in New york in 1999 West Nile virus has reached across the country and shown few signs of abating.
Most efforts to figure out the ecological workings of the virus have focused on reports of infected people a crude indicator at best says Crowder.
and birds surveys of virus-bearing mosquitoes breeding bird surveys and detailed land use maps and climate data from around the Northwest.
It's still unclear why the habitats would create such a perfect storm for the virus. The researchers speculate that mosquitoes are drawn to orchards for plant nectar during flowering
Co-lead author Dr Stephen Willis School of Biological and Biomedical sciences Durham University said: We found that young vultures travel much further than we ever imagined to find food sometimes moving more than 220 kilometres a day.
Individuals moved through up to five countries over a period of 200 days emphasising the need for conservation collaboration among countries to protect this species. In South africa the vultures avoided the national parks that have been established to conserve wildlife.
#Biofuels blend right in: Researchers show ionic liquids effective for pre-treating mixed blends of biofuel feedstockswinemakers have known long that blending different grape varietals can favorably balance the flavor characteristics of the wine they produce.
In the future makers of advanced biofuels might use a similar strategy blending different feedstock varieties to balance the energy characteristics of the transportation fuel they produce.
A collaborative study by researchers with the U s. Department of energy (DOE)' s Joint Bioenergy Institute (JBEI) a bioenergy research center led by Berkeley Lab
and the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has shown that an ionic liquid proven to be effective for pre-treating individual biofuel feedstocks is also effective at pre-treating multiple different feedstocks that have been mixed
and densified into a blend Our results show that an ionic liquid pre-treatment can efficiently handle mixed feedstocks that have been milled
and densifying a wide range of feedstocks has significant potential for helping to make biofuels a cost-competitive transportation fuel technology.
Simmons and his JBEI colleague Seema Singh director of JBEI's Biomass Pretreatment group led the JBEI/INL study in
which four biomass feedstocks representing the general classes of plants well-suited to serving as fuel crops were mixed
or pellets then pre-treated with 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium acetate (C2mim OAC) the ionic liquid used at JBEI as a benchmark for biomass processing.
and densification on the efficiency at which the complex polysaccharides in cellulosic biomass could be converted into fermentable sugars for fuel production.
Lignocellulosic biorefineries must be able to efficiently process available regional feedstocks at cost-competitive prices year round
biofuels industry. Produced from the microbial fermentation of sugars in lignocellulosic biomass advanced biofuels are clean green and renewable
and could displace gasoline diesel and jet fuel on a gallon-for-gallon basis and be dropped directly into today's engines and infrastructures.
The sugars in lignocellulosic biomass however are complex polysaccharides that are embedded deeply within a very recalcitrant material called lignin.
and elsewhere have been studying biomass pretreatments with ionic liquids--environmentally benign organic salts often used as green chemistry substitutes for volatile organic solvents.
Researchers at INL have been investigating ways to increase the energy densities of biomass feedstocks and make delivery to refineries much more economical.
but is backed now by a review of hundreds of studies co-authored in Ecology Letters by Mark Bertness professor of biology at Brown who first formally proposed the hypothesis in 1994.
We're no longer in the casual earlier stages of ecology says biologist Mark Bertness. Nearly two decades later with so much evidence now assembled Bertness said ecologists should feel confident enough in the Stress Gradient Hypothesis to employ it as a rule of thumb.
and test its applications to conservation biology. The hypothesis suggests for example that marine ecosystem managers who want to help tropical fish should focus on sustaining foundational species in the ecosystem such as corals.
#Biologists use diag trees to help solve gypsy moth mysteryworking beneath the towering oaks and maples on the University of Michigan's central campus Diag undergraduate researchers and their faculty adviser helped explain an observation that had puzzled insect ecologists who study voracious leaf-munching gypsy moth caterpillars.
Biologists wondered whether the caterpillars shun sugar maples in part because their leaves are less nutritious than the leaves of other trees.
To find out U-M biochemist Ray Barbehenn and several of his undergraduate research assistants compared the protein quality of red oak
Biology and Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. The amount of essential amino acids in oak leaves was 30-42 percent higher than the EAA content of maple leaves in the spring and summer.
Niewiadomski graduated from U-M with a bachelor's degree in biology in May 2010 and is now studying nutrition in a doctoral program at Cornell University.
and think like biologists and they help me get publication-quality data he said. For almost all of them it's the first time they've had this opportunity
and Sergey Maly shev a pro fes sional spe cial ist both in the Depart ment of Ecol ogy and Evo lu tion ary Biol ogy and asso
##Zoomable map of poplar proteins offers new view of bioenergy cropresearchers seeking to improve production of ethanol from woody crops have a new resource in the form of an extensive molecular map
Populus a fast-growing perennial tree holds potential as a bioenergy crop due to its ability to produce large amounts of biomass on nonagricultural land.
Now a study by ORNL scientists with the Department of energy's Bioenergy Science Center has provided the most comprehensive look to date at poplar's proteome the suite of proteins produced by a plant's cells.
The study is featured on the cover of January's Molecular and Cellular Proteomics. The ability to comprehensively measure genes and proteins helps us understand the range of molecular machinery that a plant uses to do its life functions said ORNL's Robert Hettich.
This can provide the information necessary to modify a metabolic process to do something specific such as altering the lignin content of a tree to make it better suited for biofuel production.
The ORNL research team measured more than 11000 proteins in different parts of poplar including mature leaves young leaves roots and stems.
and also the ability to zoom in on specific biological features such as pathways and individual proteins.
By having these different viewpoints it makes it easier to mine out the relevant biological information.
Unlike an organism's genome which is the same for every cell and remains constant the proteome varies from cell to cell
and adapt to environmental surroundings by altering their proteins could help bioenergy researchers develop poplar trees better suited to biofuel production.
or modify it to develop a superior plant with all favorable traits through transgenics. The study's coauthors are ORNL's Robert Hettich Paul Abraham Richard Giannone Rachel Adams Udaya Kalluri and Gerald Tuskan.
#Bioinspired fibers change color when stretcheda team of materials scientists at Harvard university and the University of Exeter UK have invented a new fiber that changes color when stretched.
which has evolved to serve a specific biological function has inspired an extremely useful and interesting technological design.
which carbon is exchanged among the atmosphere the ocean the biosphere and Earth's crust. Fewer trees mean not only a weakening of the forest's ability to absorb carbon
and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry Germany. This study was funded by the U s. Department of energy's Office of Science and the National aeronautics and space administration.
#Genome sequence of 90 chickpea lines decodedin a scientific breakthrough that promises improved grain yields and quality greater drought tolerance and disease resistance and enhanced genetic diversity
a global research team has completed high-quality sequencing of not one but ninety genomes of chickpea.
Nature Biotechnology featured the reference genome of the CDC Frontier chickpea variety and genome sequence of 90 cultivated and wild genotypes from 10 different countries as an online publication on 27 january 2013.
and functions of the genes that define the chickpea plant. It also reveals clues on how the sequence can be useful to crop improvement for sustainable and resilient food production toward improved livelihoods of smallholder farmers particularly in marginal environments of Asia and Sub-saharan africa.
The research milestone was the result of years of genome analysis by the International Chickpea Genome Sequencing Consortium (ICGSC) led by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semiarid Tropics (ICRISAT) headquartered in Hyderabad Andhra
The global research partnership succeeded in identifying an estimated 28269 genes of chickpea after sequencing CDC Frontier a kabuli (large-seeded) chickpea variety.
Re-sequencing of additional 90 genotypes provided millions of genetic markers and low diversity genome regions that may be used in the development of superior varieties with enhanced drought tolerance and disease resistance.
This will help chickpea farmers become more resilient to emerging challenges brought about by the threat of climate change.
The genome map can also be used to harness genetic diversity by broadening the genetic base of cultivated chickpea genepool.
ICRISAT and its partners have demonstrated once again the power of productive partnerships by achieving this breakthrough in legume genomics says Dr William Dar Director General ICRISAT.
along with other CGIAR Consortium members and program as well as national partners genome sequencing will play a crucial role in speeding up the development of improved varieties for smallholder farmer crops such as chickpea.
In the face of the growing global hunger and poverty amid the threat of climate change the chickpea genome sequence will facilitate the development of superior varieties that will generate more income
Genetic diversity an important prerequisite for crop improvement is limited very and has been a serious constraint for chickpea improvement.
not only access to'good genes'to speed up breeding but also to genomic regions that will bring genetic diversity back from landraces
or wild species to breeding lines explains Dr Rajeev Varshney coordinator of ICGSC and Director--Center of Excellence in Genomics ICRISAT.
At the moment it takes 4-8 years to breed a new chickpea variety. This genome sequence could reduce to half the time to breed for a new variety with market-preferred traits. he adds.
According to Professor Jun Wang Director of BGI The collaboration between BGI and ICRISAT has yielded significant achievements in orphan crops research like the pigeonpea genome before and now the chickpea genome.
I believe that our partnership will revolutionize research on orphan crops which are key staple crops in many low-income countries
The chickpea genome sequencing project was undertaken by the ICGSC led by ICRISAT the University of California-Davis (USA) and BGI-Shenzhen (China) with key involvement of national partners in India USA Canada Spain
whose populations tend to be regular around some average abundance based on food weather and other external factors says Matt Ayres a professor in the Department of Biological sciences at Dartmouth and senior author on the paper.
and more effective toxicity tests for airborne chemicals scientists from Rice university and the Rice spinoff company Nano3d Biosciences have used magnetic levitation to grow some of the most realistic lung tissue ever produced in a laboratory.
The research is part of an international trend in biomedical engineering to create laboratory techniques for growing tissues that are virtually identical to those found in people's bodies.
Killian and fellow scientists from Rice and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center co-founded Nano3d Biosciences in 2009 after creating a technology that uses magnetism to levitate
Growing realistic lung tissues in vitro is a particular challenge said study co-author Jane Grande-Allen professor of bioengineering at Rice.
Nano3d Biosciences won a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 2011 to create a four-layered lung tissue from endothelial cells smooth muscle cells
when Rice bioengineering graduate student Hubert Tseng joined the research team as an intern. Tseng was already a student in Grande-Allen's lab one of Rice's leading laboratories for tissue-engineering research.
and layers of in vitro bronchiole tissue created at Rice university and Nano3d Biosciences. The cell layers include epithelial cells (Epic) smooth muscle cells (SMC) pulmonary fibroblasts (PF) and pulmonary endothelial cells (PEC.
and the tissue has the same biochemical signature as native tissue Tseng said. We also used primary cells rather than engineered cells
Study co-authors include Robert Raphael professor of bioengineering at Rice and cofounder of Nano3d Biosciences;
and former BCM scientist Jacob Gage now with Nano3d Biosciences. The research was funded by NSF and the Texas Emerging Technologies Fund.
#Scarecrow gene: Key to efficient crops, could lead to staple crops with much higher yieldswith projections of 9. 5 billion people by 2050 humankind faces the challenge of feeding modern diets
Cornell researchers have taken a leap toward meeting those needs by discovering a gene that could lead to new varieties of staple crops with 50 percent higher yields.
The gene called Scarecrow is discovered the first to control a special leaf structure known as Kranz anatomy
Researchers have been trying to find the underlying genetics of Kranz anatomy so we can engineer it into C3 crops said Thomas Slewinski lead author of a paper that appeared online in November in the journal Plant and Cell Physiology.
Slewinski is a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of senior author Robert Turgeon professor of plant biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.
If C4 photosynthesis is transferred successfully to C3 plants through genetic engineering farmers could grow wheat and rice in hotter dryer environments with less fertilizer while possibly increasing yields by half the researchers said.
if C4 leaves shared endodermal genes with roots and stems the genetics that controlled those cell types may also be shared.
Slewinski looked for experimental maize lines with mutant Scarecrow genes which he knew governed endodermal cells in roots.
When the researchers grew those plants they first identified problems in the roots then checked for abnormalities in the bundle sheath.
In a study published in the January 2013 issue of the journal Biological Conservation Barrett
#Global gene pool of goat is seriously under threatamongst the range of domestic livestock species the goat is not just the'black sheep
The risk of the gene pool of the goat disappearing has increased due to intensive animal husbandry systems that use a very limited number of breeds.
Strangely enough the biggest loss in the genetic resources of indigenous animals has been observed in Europe although the situation is unknown in many areas as explained to SINC by Rocã o Rosa Garcã a researcher at SERIDA and coauthor of the study.
when they are need in of additional energy said Janet Donaldson assistant professor in Biological sciences Mississippi State university.
#Beta carotene may protect people with common genetic risk factor for type-2 diabetesstanford University School of medicine investigators have found that for people harboring a genetic predisposition that is prevalent among Americans beta carotene
The scientists used a big data approach to hunt down interactions between gene variants previously associated with increased risk for type-2 diabetes
In people carrying a double dose of one such predisposing gene variant the researchers pinpointed a highly statistically significant inverse association of beta carotene blood levels with type-2 diabetes risk along with a suspiciously high positive association of gamma
Butte is the senior author of the new study published online Jan 22 in Human genetics. The first author Chirag Patel Phd is a former graduate student in Butte's lab and now a postdoctoral scholar at the Stanford Prevention Research center.
Moreover the fact that both beta carotene and gamma tocopherol interact with the same gene variant to influence diabetes risk
albeit in opposite directions suggests that the protein the gene called SLC30A4 codes for may play a crucial role in the disease.
The genomes of some 50 to 60 percent of the U s. population carry two copies of that very gene variant which previous studies have shown to confer a slightly increased risk of contracting type-2 diabetes.
This variant was one of 18 each found by other researchers to have a mild association with type-2 diabetes risk that the Butte team incorporated into its analysis. These gene/disease connections had been identified via so-called genome-wide association studies
In such analyses the genomes of large numbers of people with a disease are compared with those of people without it to see
if certain versions of any gene variants occur with substantially greater frequency in one group than in the other.
The most well-studied gene variations are substitutions of one type of chemical unit of DNA for another one at a single position along the genome.
The genome contains millions of spots at which such differences occur so advanced statistical techniques must be employed to screen out frequency differences between the diseased and healthy groups that are at bottom the mere results of blind chance.
While plenty of genetic risk factors for type-2 diabetes have been found said Butte none of them taken alone
But genes don't act in a vacuum he added. If food is hard to find nobody gets fat obesity predisposition or not.
Unlike the genome which is huge but finite (about 3 billion chemical units long) the environment contains an infinite number of substances from dietary micronutrients to synthetic pollutants to
This enabled the researchers to perform a novel study pairing each of the 18 type-2-diabetes-implicated gene variants with each of the five suspect environmental substances to see how for individuals carrying a particular gene variant
None of the genetic factors studied in isolation had shown a particularly impressive impact on type-2 diabetes risk.
It also may throw light on precisely how these substances affect the production or performance of the protein for which the implicated gene codes.
He noted that blood levels of alpha tocopherol--another form of Vitamin e that predominates in most supplements--showed no deleterious interaction with the predisposing gene variant in the new study.
Biologist Ramakrishna Wusirika and his team made their anticancer cocktail with blobs of rice stem-cells called calli
Or he notes it's possible that the suite of biochemicals found in the callus solution work as a team to fight cancer.
This is the first time we've been able to separate observed heat trapping due to ozone into its natural versus human sources and even into specific types of human sources such as fossil fuels versus biofuels.
and mitigate a variety of threats to biodiversity and wildlife including lowland tapirs including road construction logging unsustainable natural resource use and agricultural expansion.
Howlers are arboreal primates that is to say they spend their wholes lives in the trees said Dr Jacob Dunn from Cambridge's Department of Biological Anthropology who carried out the research.
#Curious interaction in regeneration of oak forests: Voles know which acorns have insect larvaeresearchers at the UPM have observed as voles are able to distinguish the acorns containing insect larvae from those that have not.
This fact determines the dispersion and germination of acorns and therefore the regeneration of forests of oaks.
or not inside of the acorn can modify the dispersion pattern and consequently the regeneration of these types of forests.
and therefore contributing to better movement of genes and a successful regeneration of these trees.
The researchers found an uptick in growth in higher elevations of the region over the 13-year period with an almost eight-percent increase in live-tree biomass a measure of tree growth.
Individual species within the rain forest however differed--western redcedar biomass increased by four percent while shore pine declined by almost five percent.
and research biologist David L. Peterson are communicating climate change science within the agency helping managers--in Alaska
#Wind in the willows boosts biofuel production: Trees grown diagonally produce five times more biofuelwillow trees cultivated for'green energy'can yield up to five times more biofuel
if they grow diagonally compared with those that are allowed to grow naturally up towards the sky.
and in plantations around the UK but scientists were previously unable to explain why some willows produced more biofuel than others.
Now British researchers have identified a genetic trait that causes this effect and is activated in some trees
These high-energy sugars are fermented into biofuels when the trees are harvested in a process that currently needs to be more efficient before it can rival the production of fossil fuels.
Willow is cultivated widely across the UK destined to become biofuels for motor vehicles heating systems and industry.
The researchers say that in the future all willow crops could be bred for this genetic trait making them a more productive and greener energy source.
The study is published in the journal Biotechnology for Biofuels. Dr Brereton said: We've known for some time that environmental stresses can cause trees to naturally develop a slightly modified'reaction wood
This is an important breakthrough our study now shows that natural genetic variations are responsible for these differences
and this could well be the key to unlocking the future for sustainable bioenergy from willow.#
and looked for any genetic differences between these plants and those allowed to grow naturally straight upwards.
Dr Angela Karp at Rothamsted Research who leads the BBSRC-funded BSBEC-Biomass project said#oewe are excited very about these results
#This work forms part of the BBSRC Sustainable Bioenergy Centre (BSBEC) where it is linked with other programmes aimed at improving the conversion of biomass to fuels.
Coupled with work at Rothamsted Research where the National Willow Collection is held the new results will help scientists to grow biofuel crops in climatically challenging conditions where the options for growing food crops are limited
Environmental groups also say that willow plantations are also attractive to a variety of wildlife making a positive impact on local biodiversity.
and analyzes its likely effects on human health water energy transportation agriculture forests ecosystems and biodiversity.
The researchers measured the amount of biomass currently covering the study areas using the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO)--an aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art imaging systems (funded by the Andrew Mellon Foundation.
which biomass maps were generated. The researchers selected the village of Justicia as a model for calculating how reserves of fuelwood could be reduced under different consumption scenarios.
They also showed that households using fuelwood would need to be reduced by 15 per cent a year for eight years until only 20 per cent of total households are using it before biomass stabilises to a sustainable level.
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