The Genome Sequence of Taurine Cattle: A Window to Ruminant Biology and Evolution

To understand the biology and evolution of ruminants, the cattle genome was sequenced to about sevenfold coverage. The cattle genome contains a minimum of 22,000 genes, with a core set of 14,345 orthologs shared among seven mammalian species of which 1217 are absent or undetected in noneutherian (marsupial or monotreme) genomes. Cattle-specific evolutionary breakpoint regions in chromosomes have a higher density of segmental duplications, enrichment of repetitive elements, and species-specific variations in genes associated with lactation and immune responsiveness. Genes involved in metabolism are generally highly conserved, although five metabolic genes are deleted or extensively diverged from their human orthologs. The cattle genome sequence thus provides a resource for understanding mammalian evolution and accelerating livestock genetic improvement for milk and meat production.

Ecology of microfungal communities in gardens of fungus-growing ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): a year-long survey of three species of attine ants in Central Texas

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)National Science Foundation (NSF)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Cryptic sexual populations account for genetic diversity and ecological success in a widely distributed, asexual fungus-growing ant

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Monoculture of Leafcutter Ant Gardens

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Feather mites of Brazil (Acari: Astigmata: Analgoidea and Pterolichoidea)

We present a checklist of feather mites known from native birds in Brazil. The list was compiled from a survey of Brazilian records published in indexing databases (e.g. Zoological Records) and from the available literature. To date, 185 nominal species representing 21 families have been recorded from Brazilian birds. Associations with 15 bird orders were found: Anseriformes, Apodiformes, Caprimulgiformes, Ciconiiformes, Columbiformes, Cuculiformes, Falconiformes, Galliformes, Gruiformes, Opisthocomiformes, Passeriformes, Piciformes, Psittaciformes, Tinamiformes and Trogoniformes. These birds sum to 218 species, which represent only 12.4% of all bird species occurring in Brazil. The feather mite fauna of several species-rich and important bird orders in Brazil remain unexplored, including Cathartiformes, Charadriiformes, Coraciiformes, Galbuliformes and Strigiformes. We estimate that between 900 and 5300 feather mite species are expected to occur on Brazilian birds, which is at least five times greater than current records. The training of researchers with expertise in the taxonomy of this group of mites should be stimulated so that there is a compatible number of taxonomists to discover and describe the almost unexplored feather mite fauna in Brazil.

The Genetic Architecture of Climatic Adaptation of Tropical Cattle

Adaptation of global food systems to climate change is essential to feed the world. Tropical cattle production, a mainstay of profitability for farmers in the developing world, is dominated by heat, lack of water, poor quality feedstuffs, parasites, and tropical diseases. In these systems European cattle suffer significant stock loss, and the cross breeding of taurine x indicine cattle is unpredictable due to the dilution of adaptation to heat and tropical diseases. We explored the genetic architecture of ten traits of tropical cattle production using genome wide association studies of 4,662 animals varying from 0% to 100% indicine. We show that nine of the ten have genetic architectures that include genes of major effect, and in one case, a single location that accounted for more than 71% of the genetic variation. One genetic region in particular had effects on parasite resistance, yearling weight, body condition score, coat colour and penile sheath score. This region, extending 20 Mb on BTA5, appeared to be under genetic selection possibly through maintenance of haplotypes by breeders. We found that the amount of genetic variation and the genetic correlations between traits did not depend upon the degree of indicine content in the animals. Climate change is expected to expand some conditions of the tropics to more temperate environments, which may impact negatively on global livestock health and production. Our results point to several important genes that have large effects on adaptation that could be introduced into more temperate cattle without detrimental effects on productivity.

Análise da eficiência do cobre, alumínio e PVC como condutores hidráulicos em aquecedores solares

One of society concerns are preserving the environment and the growing energy demand. These two issues are in conflict since most of the energy used today in some way harms the environment. Then is essential to develop and implement ways to clean and renewable energy. In this way, solar energy stands out as a source of clean energy, renewable, abundant and acessible. Solar energy can be harnessed by photovoltaic cells or by solar collectors. The aim of this article is analysethe yield of the solar heather assembled with hydraulic conductive and plastic bottles using three different materials for hydraulic conductors, in order to compare these efficiences and analyze material which has the best cost-benefit in this type of application. The materials analyzed in this study were copper, aluminum and PVC. For this analysis were assembled three alike solar heaters using each one of these materials, and were done several series of measurements of the temperature water output to each heat with flow between 10 and 30 liters per hour. With these data we can analyze the yield and the performance of copper, aluminum and PVC in this application. So we can conclude that aluminum has a higher efficiency, followed by PVC, and the copper had the lowest efficiency. This behavior kept for all values of flow rates examined

Genome-wide association study and ancestral origins of the slick-hair coat in tropically adapted cattle

The slick hair coat (SLICK) is a dominantly inherited trait typically associated with tropically adapted cattle that are from Criollo descent through Spanish colonization of cattle into the New World. The trait is of interest relative to climate change, due to its association with improved thermo-tolerance and subsequent increased productivity. Previous studies localized the SLICK locus to a 4 cM region on chromosome (BTA) 20 and identified signatures of selection in this region derived from Senepol cattle. The current study compares three slick-haired Criollo-derived breeds including Senepol, Carora, and Romosinuano and three additional slick-haired cross-bred lineages to non-slick ancestral breeds. Genome-wide association (GWA), haplotype analysis, signatures of selection, runs of homozygosity (ROH), and identity by state (IBS) calculations were used to identify a 0.8 Mb (37.7-38.5 Mb) consensus region for the SLICK locus on BTA20 in which contains SKP2 and SPEF2 as possible candidate genes. Three specific haplotype patterns are identified in slick individuals, all with zero frequency in non-slick individuals. Admixture analysis identified common genetic patterns between the three slick breeds at the SLICK locus. Principal component analysis (PCA) and admixture results show Senepol and Romosinuano sharing a higher degree of genetic similarity to one another with a much lesser degree of similarity to Carora. Variation in GWA, haplotype analysis, and IBS calculations with accompanying population structure information supports potentially two mutations, one common to Senepol and Romosinuano and another in Carora, effecting genes contained within our refined location for the SLICK locus.