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Topic Review
Potential of Microalgal Biostimulants for Sustainable Agricultural Practices
Plant biostimulants have long been considered an important source of plant growth stimulants in agronomy and agro-industries with both macroalgae (seaweeds) and microalgae (microalgae). There has been extensive exploration of macroalgae biostimulants.
  • 942
  • 08 Aug 2023
Topic Review
Vitamin A Deficiency and Poultry Health
Vitamin A, a critical micronutrient, plays a vital role in maintaining poultry health and maximizing productivity. Vitamin A deficiency can have severe consequences on poultry health, compromising growth, reproduction, immune competence, and overall productivity.
  • 942
  • 04 Dec 2023
Topic Review
Minerals and Cancer
Minerals and trace elements are important micronutrients for normal physiological function of the body. They are abundant in natural food sources and are regularly included in dietary supplements whereas highly processed industrial food often contains reduced or altered amounts of them. In modern society, the daily intake, storage pools, and homeostasis of these micronutrients are dependent on certain dietary habits and can be thrown out of balance by malignancies. Their dietary imbalance, which is becoming more common in the diets of industrialized countries, is linked to an increased risk of cancer. 
  • 940
  • 15 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Northern Olingo
The Northern Olingo (Bassaricyon gabbii) is a small arboreal mammal found in the forests of Central America, primarily in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala. With its slender body, long bushy tail, and large eyes, the Northern Olingo bears a resemblance to both cats and weasels, though it is actually a member of the raccoon family. As a nocturnal and solitary creature, the Northern Olingo plays a crucial role in its forest ecosystem, preying on small mammals, birds, insects, and fruits while contributing to seed dispersal and maintaining ecological balance.
  • 940
  • 08 Mar 2024
Topic Review
Farm-level in Pig Production
Specialist systematically mapped the scientific literature on the sustainability of pig production at farm-level. Sustainability was considered holistically, i.e. economic, environmental, and social dimensions, each consisting of a broad range of different aspects that may contradict or reinforce each other. Literature published between January 2000 and March 2020 with a geographical focus on Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand was included. We found that papers analysing environmental sustainability were more frequent than papers analysing economic or social sustainability. However, there are many different aspects within each dimension of sustainability, hampering comparisons between studies. These interrelations are not well understood and that possible trade-offs or synergies between different aspects of sustainability dimensions remain unidentified. This systematic mapping of the current literature on farm-level sustainability in pig production can support a more informed discussion on knowledge gaps and help prioritise future research at farm-level to enhance sustainability in pig production.
  • 939
  • 27 Oct 2020
Topic Review
eDNA in Fish Disease
Organisms release their nucleic acid in the environment, including the DNA and RNA, which can be used to detect their presence. Environmental DNA (eDNA)/eRNA techniques are being used in different sectors to identify organisms from soil, water, air, and ice. The advancement in technology led to easier detection of different organisms without impacting the environment or the organism itself. These methods are being employed in different areas, including surveillance, history, and conservation. eDNA and eRNA methods are being extensively used in aquaculture and fisheries settings to understand the presence of different fish species and pathogens in water. 
  • 939
  • 06 Dec 2022
Topic Review
Leaves of Chirimoya (Annona cherimola Mill.)
Annona cherimola Mill. is a native species of Ecuador cultivated worldwide for the flavor and properties of its fruit. Hydrodistillation was used to isolate essential oil (EO) of fresh Annona cherimola leaves collected in Ecuadorian Sierra. The EO chemical composition was determined using a non-polar and a polar chromatographic column and enantiomeric distribution with an enantioselective column. 
  • 938
  • 11 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Naturalized Parrots
Parrots have been transported and traded by humans for at least the last 2000 years and this trade continues unabated today. This transport of species has involved the majority of recognized parrot species (300+ of 382 species). Inevitably, some alien species either escape captivity or are released and may establish breeding populations in the novel area. With respect to parrots, established but alien populations are becoming common in many parts of the world.
  • 937
  • 21 Oct 2021
Topic Review
A Fiber-Specific Promoter in Cotton
Cotton fibers, single seed trichomes derived from ovule epidermal cells, are the major source of global textile fibers. Fiber-specific promoters are desirable to study gene function and to modify fiber properties during fiber development. A regulatory sequence from Rho-related GTPase6 (GhROP6) that is predominantly active in initiating and elongating cotton fibers was introduced. 
  • 937
  • 03 Mar 2022
Topic Review
Guiding Nutritious Food Choices
For the food system to become more sustainable and nutritious, the environment in which consumers’ choices are shaped and informed has an important influence on their diet. Health-positive policies and regulations can support investment and increased intake of fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains, as well as mandating these foods to form part of institutional feeding programmes such as national school nutrition programs. Efforts to regulate the marketing of commercial products and services can be highly controversial, but they have been shown to be effective in driving food choices.
  • 934
  • 30 Aug 2021
Topic Review
CsAGA1 and CsAGA2 Mediate RFO Hydrolysis
A Raffinose family oligosaccharides (RFOs) is one of the major translocated sugars in the vascular bundle of cucumber, but little RFOs can be detected in fruits. Alpha-galactosidases (α-Gals) catalyze the first catabolism step of RFOs. Six α-Gal genes exist in a cucumber genome, but their spatial functions in fruits remain unclear.
  • 933
  • 22 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Big Data on the Farm
The demand for poultry meat and eggs is predicted to considerably increase in pace with human population growth. Although this expansion clearly represents a remarkable opportunity for the sector, it conceals a multitude of challenges. Pollution and land erosion, competition for limited resources between animal and human nutrition, animal welfare concerns, limitations on the use of growth promoters and antimicrobial agents, and increasing risks and effects of animal infectious diseases and zoonoses are several topics that have received attention from authorities and the public. The increase in poultry production must be achieved mainly through optimization and increased efficiency. The increasing ability to generate large amounts of data (“big data”) is pervasive in both modern society and the farming industry. Information accessibility—coupled with the availability of tools and computational power to store, share, integrate, and analyze data with automatic and flexible algorithms—offers an unprecedented opportunity to develop tools to maximize farm profitability, reduce socio-environmental impacts, and increase animal and human health and welfare. A detailed description of all topics and applications of big data analysis in poultry farming would be infeasible. The principles and benefits of advanced statistical techniques, such as machine learning and deep learning, and their use in developing effective and reliable classification and prediction models to benefit the farming system, are also discussed.
  • 933
  • 15 Jun 2023
Topic Review
Seaweed Polysaccharides in Pigs
The polysaccharides contained in brown, red, and green seaweeds present different bioactive molecules such as fucoidan, laminarin, alginate, ulvan, and carrageenan.
  • 932
  • 25 Jun 2021
Topic Review
Environmental Contaminants-Related Fertility Threat in Male Fishes
Public concern regarding environmental contaminants (ECs)-related reproductive disorders has increased due to increasing global rates of infertility. All kinds of ECs are on rise rapidly in developing and industrializing low- and middle-income countries. The aquatic environments throughout the world are repositories for enormous amounts of ECs. As the biology of the reproductive system is highly conserved in vertebrates, wildlife or laboratory studies on fish provide significant information to establish a detailed risk assessment, and to identify novel or more sensitive endpoints for ECs-related reproductive disorders. The adverse effects of ECs on endocrine regulation of reproduction in male fishes have been extensively studied and reviewed; however, our knowledge on the effects and mechanisms of action of ECs on determinants of male fertility is limited.
  • 932
  • 27 Oct 2021
Topic Review
Fermented Corn–Soybean Meal Mixed Feed
Fermented corn-soybean meal mixed feed is a fermented product based on corn, soybean meal and wheat bran.
  • 931
  • 08 Nov 2021
Topic Review
IUGR and Hydroxytyrosol Affect the Porcine Hippocampus
Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) refers to poor growth of a fetus during pregnancy due to deficient maternal nutrition or oxygen supply. Supplementation of a mother’s diet with antioxidants, such as hydroxytyrosol (HTX), has been proposed to ameliorate the adverse phenotypes of IUGR. 
  • 930
  • 01 Dec 2021
Topic Review
Galeus melastomus
We reviewed literature on the diet of the Galeus melastomus Rafinesque, 1810, from the Mediterranean Sea. Specific keywords (“Galeus melastomus diet”, “feeding habits”, “trophic position”, “biology”, “deep environment adaptation”) in the principal data sources, such as Web of Science, PubMed, and Google Scholar were used. Seventeen studies conducted on the diet and trophic position of G. melastomus have been considered for Mediterranean Sea regions. The feeding habits have been analyzed in many areas of the western basin; instead, for the Tyrrhenian, Adriatic, and central Mediterranean Seas, information is outdated and fragmentary. In all investigated sub areas, the data showed that G. melastomus is an opportunistic demersal supra benthic predator, benthic feeder, and scavenger, that adapts its diet to the seasonal and geographical fluctuations of the prey availability. It occupies a generalist niche showing individual specialization. In all reviewed Mediterranean sub areas, the most important prey groups were crustaceans, cephalopods, and teleost fishes. Taxa percentage in its diet composition can vary depending on different habitats with ontogenetic development of individuals, depth (that is correlated with the ontogenetic development), seasonal availability, and distribution of different prey groups. 
  • 929
  • 28 May 2021
Topic Review
Genetic Factors and Antimicrobial Blue Light Treatment
Antimicrobial blue light treatments have mostly been utilized in clinical and food settings. The treatment involves the exposure of bacteria in a given matrix to blue light that can be absorbed by endogenous porphyrins within the bacterial cell, inducing the production of reactive oxygen species, which subsequently inflict oxidative damages upon different cellular components. The efficacy of antimicrobial blue light treatments is most commonly measured by the reduction in bacterial counts after exposure to a certain light dosage (Joule/cm^2), defined as the multiplication product of light intensity and treatment time. Inherent factors may confer protection to a selected group of bacteria against blue light-induced oxidative damages or modulate the physiological characteristics of the treated bacteria, such as virulence and motility. 
  • 929
  • 26 Oct 2021
Topic Review
TRP and Thermoregulation in Animals
Transient receptor potentialare cation channels made up of transmembrane proteins that function as transductors through changes in the membrane potential due to the intracellular concentrations of Ca2+. Q10 is the temperature coefficient of the rate of change when an organism increases its temperature by 10 °C.
  • 929
  • 07 Jan 2022
Topic Review
Next Generation Crop-Yield Improvement
Artificial domestication and improvement of the majority of crops began approximately 10,000 years ago, in different parts of the world, to achieve high productivity, good quality, and widespread adaptability. It was initiated from a phenotype-based selection by local farmers and developed to current biotechnology-based breeding to feed over 7 billion people. For most cereal crops, yield relates to grain production, which could be enhanced by increasing grain number and weight. Grain number is typically determined during inflorescence development. Many mutants and genes for inflorescence development have already been characterized in cereal crops. Therefore, optimization of such genes could fine-tune yield-related traits, such as grain number. With the rapidly advancing genome-editing technologies and understanding of yield-related traits, knowledge-driven breeding by design is becoming a reality.
  • 928
  • 27 May 2021
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