Your browser does not fully support modern features. Please upgrade for a smoother experience.
Subject:
All Disciplines Arts & Humanities Biology & Life Sciences Business & Economics Chemistry & Materials Science Computer Science & Mathematics Engineering Environmental & Earth Sciences Medicine & Pharmacology Physical Sciences Public Health & Healthcare Social Sciences
Sort by:
Most Viewed Latest Alphabetical (A-Z) Alphabetical (Z-A)
Filter:
All Topic Review Biography Peer Reviewed Entry Video Entry
Topic Review
Drought
Droughts are an environmental challenge that often cause significant losses of livelihoods the world over. For instance, rain-fed agriculture, livestock production, biodiversity, and several ecosystem services (ES) that are fundamental to human well-being are increasingly threatened by more severe droughts. 
  • 2.0K
  • 30 Apr 2024
Topic Review
Microbial Inhibition Test
Antimicrobial detection tests are conventional screening tools used in slaughterhouses to prevent the entry of antimicrobial residues into the food chain. The occasional appearance of antibiotic or bacteriostatic residues is a problem of major worldwide concern, as such residues can lead not only to toxicity for humans, but also to the emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In particular, antibacterial residues that contaminate meat can cause allergic reactions, can lead to dysbiosis of the gastrointestinal flora and can enhance dissemination of AMR, not only in the environment but also inside the gut, leading to antibacterially resistant communities in our intestinal flora.
  • 2.0K
  • 23 Aug 2021
Topic Review
Nanobiotechnology for Agriculture
Nanobiotechnology in agriculture is a driver for modern-day smart, efficient agricultural practices. Nanoparticles have been shown to stimulate plant growth and disease resistance. The goal of sustainable farming can be accomplished by developing and sustainably exploiting the fruits of nanobiotechnology to balance the advantages nanotechnology provides in tackling environmental challenges.
  • 2.0K
  • 14 Mar 2021
Topic Review
Soybean Tocopherols
Tocopherols are natural antioxidants that increase the stability of fat-containing foods and are well known for their health benefits. The inclination of tocopherol concentrations with various MGs provided further evidence of the significance of MG in soybean breeding for seed tocopherol components. Furthermore, the correlation between the seed tocopherol components and geographical factors revealed that α-, γ-, and total tocopherols had significant positive correlations with latitude, while δ-tocopherol showed an opposite trend. The elite accessions with high and stable tocopherol concentrations determined could be used to develop functional foods, industrial materials, and breeding lines to improve tocopherol composition in soybean seeds.
  • 2.0K
  • 01 Apr 2022
Topic Review
Non-Mendelian Heredity in Plant Breeding
Mendelian heredity is the cornerstone of plant breeding and has been used to develop new varieties of plants since the 19th century. However, there are several breeding cases, such as cytoplasmic inheritance, methylation, epigenetics, hybrid vigor, and loss of heterozygosity (LOH), where Mendelian heredity is not applicable, known as non-Mendelian heredity. This type of inheritance can be influenced by several factors besides the genetic architecture of the plant and its breeding potential. Therefore, exploring various non-Mendelian heredity mechanisms, their prevalence in plants, and the implications for plant breeding is of paramount importance to accelerate the pace of crop improvement.
  • 2.0K
  • 15 Jun 2023
Topic Review
North American River Otter
The North American River Otter (Lontra canadensis) is a charismatic and highly adaptable semi-aquatic mammal native to freshwater habitats across North America. Recognizable for its sleek, streamlined body, webbed feet, and playful behavior, this otter species is well-suited to its aquatic lifestyle. As a top predator in freshwater ecosystems, the North American River Otter plays a vital role in maintaining the health and balance of aquatic food webs.
  • 2.0K
  • 08 Feb 2024
Topic Review
South American Sea Lion
The South American Sea Lion (Otaria flavescens) is a charismatic marine mammal found along the coasts of South America, from Peru to southern Brazil, including the Falkland Islands and Uruguay. Known for its large size, robust build, and distinctive "mane" of coarse hair around the neck of adult males, this species is a top predator in its marine ecosystem. With a diverse diet consisting of fish, squid, and crustaceans, the South American Sea Lion plays a crucial role in maintaining the balance of marine ecosystems along the South American coastline.
  • 2.0K
  • 15 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Drivers of Palatability for Cats and Dogs
The pet food industry is an important sector of the pet care market that is growing rapidly. Whilst the number of new and innovative products continues to rise, research and development to assess product performance follows traditional palatability methodology. Pet food palatability research focuses on the amount of food consumed through use of one-bowl and two-bowl testing, but little understanding is given to why differences are observed, particularly at a fundamental ingredient level.
  • 2.0K
  • 27 Apr 2023
Topic Review
Genetic Variations in Fruit Trees
Fruit trees provide essential nutrients to humans by contributing to major agricultural outputs and economic growth globally. However, major constraints to sustainable agricultural productivity are the uncontrolled proliferation of the population, and biotic and abiotic stresses. Tree mutation breeding has been substantially improved using different physical and chemical mutagens.
  • 2.0K
  • 24 May 2022
Topic Review
Colorado Potato Beetle Control
The Colorado potato beetle (CPB) is one of the most important potato pest worldwide. It is native to U.S. but during the 20th century it has dispersed through Europe, Asia and western China. It continues to expand in an east and southeast direction. Damages are caused by larvae and adults. Their feeding on potato plant leaves can cause complete defoliation and lead to a large yield loss. After the long period of using only chemical control measures, the emergence of resistance increased and some new and different methods come to the fore. The main focus of this entry is on new approaches to the old CPB control problem. We describe the use of Bacillus thuringiensis and RNA interference (RNAi) as possible solutions for the future in CPB management. RNAi has proven successful in controlling many pests and shows great potential for CPB control. Better understanding of the mechanisms that affect efficiency will enable the development of this technology and boost potential of RNAi to become part of integrated plant protection in the future. We described also the possibility of using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) as a way to go deeper into our understanding of resistance and how it influences genotypes.
  • 2.0K
  • 20 Sep 2020
Topic Review
Sustainability in Brazil’s Beef Industry
Since the dawn of Brazilian trade, extensive cattle farming has predominated. Brazil’s extensive pasture-based system uses pasture plants adapted to climate and soil conditions with limited use of purchased inputs. Domestic and international stakeholders have prioritized sustainable agricultural development in Brazil’s beef sector to reduce deforestation and other natural-habitat conversions.
  • 2.0K
  • 23 Mar 2023
Topic Review
Management of Herbaceous/Horticultural Crops
Preserving soil quality and increasing soil water availability is an important challenge to ensure food production for a growing global population. As demonstrated by several studies, conservative crop management, combined with soil cover and crop diversification, can significantly reduce soil and water losses. 
  • 2.0K
  • 07 May 2021
Topic Review
Agricultural Fertilization in Europe
Fertilizers stand at the base of current agricultural practices, providing the nutrient sustainment required for growing plants.
  • 2.0K
  • 30 Jul 2021
Topic Review
Aggression in Dogs
Aggression as a behavior is not always desirable, often ends in abandonment and/or euthanasia. However, it is possible to prevent the occurrence of unwanted aggression in domestic dogs. Aggression is not a fully understood phenomenon. To aim to generalize the dogs’ behavior and understand their behavioral needs, ethograms have been developed. Communication of any kind, including aggression, is a natural part of a dog’s ethogram. An ethogram is a species-specific list of natural behavior. Dog ethograms include affiliate, agonistic, defensive, sedative, sexual, demonstrative, warning, stressful, playful, grooming, exploratory, related to hunting, or related to the reduction of stress.
  • 2.0K
  • 11 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Aquilaria Identification Methods and Phytochemicals
Aquilaria sinensis (Lour.) Gilg is the resin-containing wood of the Aquilaria. Agarwood is a traditional Chinese medicine included in the 2020 edition of Chinese Pharmacopoeia.  The main phytochemicals of agarwood include terpenoids, dominated by sesquiterpenes. For centuries, terpenoids have been used in traditional Chinese medicine and have been shown to possess various pharmacological properties, including bacteriostatic, antibacterial, sedation, analgesia, anti-inflammation, anti-asthmatic, hypoglycemic, antidepressant, and many others. Alongside biological activity screening, phytochemical advances and pharmacological research have also made certain progress. 
  • 2.0K
  • 29 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Shade Covers in Water Reservoirs
Shade objects are small plastic spheres, squares or even hexagons floating on top of a water reserve for environmental reasons. The creator of shade balls in California originally used them to prevent chemical treatments in the reservoir from reacting with sunlight creating bromate, which is a carcinogen regulated by many institutions worldwide (chlorine plus sunlight turns bromine into bromate that is a potentially cancer-causing agent; because shady objects stop bromate from forming below, less chlorine is required to treat the water than without them). More recently, other environmental issues have been associated to the use of shade objects: slowing down water evaporation, preventing algae blooms, avoiding birds landing on bodies of water and promote water heating.
  • 2.0K
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Bovine Colostrum for Human Consumption
High quality colostrum is a valuable raw material in food products. The quality of colostrum is classified by low bacterial counts and adequate immunoglobulin (Ig) concentrations. Bacterial contamination can contain a variety of high counts of spoilage bacteria or pathogens. The supply of good quality bovine colostrum is required. The microbial safety of bovine colostrum is increased using an appropriate processing, e.g. heat treatment, which does not destroy the high nutritional value of colostrum. The heat treatment is cost-effective compared to other methods and heat treatment can be performed in both small- and large-scale production.
  • 2.0K
  • 22 Mar 2022
Topic Review
African Swine Fever Virus
African swine fever virus (ASFV) is the causative agent of the epidemic of African swine fever (ASF), with virulent strains having a mortality rate of up to 100% and presenting devastating impacts on animal farming. ASFV is the only known arbovirus in the Nucleoplasmic Large DNA Virus (NCLDV) family. It has an icosahedral structure and envelope with a diameter of 200nm. The length of the genome varies between 170 and 190 kbp, encoding 151 to 167 open reading frames (ORF), which are closely spaced along two strands of viral DNA and separated by short intergenic regions.
  • 2.0K
  • 09 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Weeds in Agricultural Fields
Weeds are significant contributors to the decline in crop yield and quality. Weeds compete with crops in terms of nutrients, water, and sunlight.
  • 2.0K
  • 18 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Camelids Milk Nutritional Properties
Milk is considered a complete food because all of the nutrients important to fulfill a newborn’s daily requirements are present, including vitamins and minerals, ensuring the correct growth rate. A large amount of global milk production is represented by cow, goat, and sheep milks; these species produce about 87% of the milk available all over the world. However, the milk obtained by minor dairy animal species is a basic food and an important family business in several parts of the world. Milk nutritional properties from a wide range of minor dairy animal species have not been totally determined. Hot temperatures and the lack of water and feed in some arid and semi-arid areas negatively affect dairy cows; in these countries, milk supply for local nomadic populations is provided by camels and dromedaries. The nutritional quality in the milk obtained from South American camelids has still not been completely investigated, the possibility of creating an economic resource for the people living in the Andean highlands must be evaluated.
  • 2.0K
  • 23 Jun 2021
  • Page
  • of
  • 70
Featured Entry Collections
>>

Featured Reprints

>>
Encyclopedia of Digital Society, Industry 5.0 and Smart City
Encyclopedia of Engineering
Encyclopedia of Social Sciences
Encyclopedia of Medieval Royal Iconography
Academic Video Service
Feedback

Quick Survey

Encyclopedia MDPI is conducting a targeted survey to identify the specific barriers hindering efficient research. We invite you to spend 3 minutes defining the priorities for our next generation of structured knowledge tools.
Take Survey