LC-MS & DFT investigations of Cryptolepis sanginolenta root extracts

The roots of Crytolepis sanguinolenta, a medicinally important ethanobotanical source of the antimalarial cryptolepine, were soxhlet extracted in anaerobic conditions, using hexane then ethanol. Samples of each extract were fractioned using flash chromatography and preparative TLC and compound identity was established using gradient HPLC-positive ion electrospray mass spectrometry. The use of argon depressed the formation of quindoline and hydroxycrytolepine. In addition to known compounds such as cryptolepine, several as yet unidentified compounds remain to be characterised in this root extract.

Assessment of evaluations made to healthy eating policies in Europe: a review within the EATWELL Project

Objective: To identify and assess healthy eating policies at national level which have been evaluated in terms of their impact on awareness of healthy eating, food consumption, health outcome or cost/benefit. Design: Review of policy documents and their evaluations when available. Setting: European Member States. Subjects: One hundred and twenty-one policy documents revised, 107 retained. Results: Of the 107 selected interventions, twenty-two had been evaluated for their impact on awareness or knowledge and twenty-seven for their impact on consumption. Furthermore sixteen interventions provided an evaluation of health impact, while three actions specifically measured any cost/benefit ratio. The indicators used in these evaluations were in most cases not comparable. Evaluation was more often found for public information campaigns, regulation of meals at schools/canteens and nutrition education programmes. Conclusions: The study highlights the need not only to develop harmonized and verifiable procedures but also indicators for measuring effectiveness and success and for comparing between interventions and countries. EU policies are recommended to provide a set of indicators that may be measured consistently and regularly in all countries. Furthermore, public information campaigns should be accompanied by other interventions, as evaluations may show an impact on awareness and intention, but rarely on consumption patterns and health outcome.

The impact of stratospheric ozone recovery on the Southern Hemisphere westerly jet

In the past several decades, the tropospheric westerly winds in the Southern Hemisphere have been observed to accelerate on the poleward side of the surface wind maximum. This has been attributed to the combined anthropogenic effects of increasing greenhouse gases and decreasing stratospheric ozone and is predicted to continue by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC/AR4) models. In this paper, the predictions of the Chemistry-Climate Model Validation (CCMVal) models are examined: Unlike the AR4 models, the CCMVal models have a fully interactive stratospheric chemistry. Owing to the expected disappearance of the ozone hole in the first half of the 21st century, the CCMVal models predict that the tropospheric westerlies in Southern Hemisphere summer will be decelerated, on the poleward side, in contrast with the prediction of most IPCC/AR4 models.

Releasing of pheasants for shooting in the UK alters woodland invertebrate communities

The management of pheasants (Phasianus colchicus) in pens and their subsequent release within woodland for game shoots is widely practised in Britain. With the exception of ground flora and songbirds, the impacts on other taxa have not been well documented. We investigated the effects of pheasants on invertebrate abundance and community composition, using pitfall trapping. We compared release pens with control plots located in the same woods and in woods where no pheasant releasing had occurred for at least 25 years. Conditions for invertebrates within release pens were altered, with more annual plants and disturbance-tolerant perennials and a reduced leaf litter layer. No major differences in invertebrate abundance, or Carabidae or Staphylinidae richness, were found in spring at either the pen scale or the wood scale. However, pheasant release pens resulted in significant changes in the species composition of Carabidae, with shifts towards species typical of arable fields and grassland. Carabid species active in spring and those that are very large (N17.0 mm) declined at pheasant release densities higher than 1000 birds/ha. Both effects are likely to be due to predation by pheasants at the peak of release in July–August, operating separately on larvae and adults respectively. There was an overall increase in the abundance of detritivores, including Diplopoda, Oniscoidea, Gastropoda (snails), at higher release densities. Mean release density in our study was 1489 ± 126 birds/ha (range 174–3409, n = 37 pens) and we suggest that detrimental effects on specialist woodland invertebrates would be minimized if releasing was conducted at the recommended density of 700 birds/ha.

Identification and validation of candidate genes associated with domesticated and improved traits in soybean

Soybean, an important source of vegetable oils and proteins for humans, has undergone significant phenotypic changes during domestication and improvement. However, there is limited knowledge about genes related to these domesticated and improved traits, such as flowering time, seed development, alkaline-salt tolerance, and seed oil content (SOC). In this study, more than 106,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were identified by restriction site associated DNA sequencing of 14 wild, 153 landrace, and 119 bred soybean accessions, and 198 candidate domestication regions (CDRs) were identified via multiple genetic diversity analyses. Of the 1489 candidate domestication genes (CDGs) within these CDRs, a total of 330 CDGs were related to the above four traits in the domestication, gene ontology (GO) enrichment, gene expression, and pathway analyses. Eighteen, 60, 66, and 10 of the 330 CDGs were significantly associated with the above four traits, respectively. Of 134 traitassociated CDGs, 29 overlapped with previous CDGs, 11 were consistent with candidate genes in previous trait association studies, and 66 were covered by the domesticated and improved quantitative trait loci or their adjacent regions, having six common CDGs, such as one functionally characterized gene Glyma15 g17480 (GmZTL3). Of the 68 seed size (SS) and SOC CDGs, 37 were further confirmed by gene expression analysis. In addition, eight genes were found to be related to artificial selection during modern breeding. Therefore, this study provides an integrated method for efficiently identifying CDGs and valuable information for domestication and genetic research.