Shifts in disease resistance induced by growth regulators

Experiments on the effect of various compounds with plant growth regulating activity led to the hypothesis that conditions inhibitory to indoleacetic acid (IAA) action or leading to a decrease in the IAA level in cucumber seedlings would be unfavourable for the development of cucumber scab, caused byCladosporium cucumerinum. Susceptibility decreased as the result of treatment with growth retardants, which cause an increase in IAA-oxidase activity in the plants, whereas application of indoleacetic acid or compounds expected to decrease the rate of oxidative breakdown of IAA in the seedlings resulted in an increase of susceptibility. Growing the plants under various periods of illumination also influenced both the susceptibility of the plants and the IAA-oxidase activity in the hypocotyl tissue.To obtain further information about the relation between the increase in resistance and the increase in the rate of IAA oxidation, the effect of one compound, viz. L-threo-β-phenylserine (abbr. phenylserine) was studied in more detail. The rate of oxidative breakdown of IAA was increased in extracts of hypocotyls and cotyledons of plants treated with phenylserine as compared with extracts of tissue of untreated plants. Extracts of phenylserine-treated plants were found to contain a higher cofactor and/or a lower inhibitor content than those of control plants. The substances involved were not identified, but this result may indicate a shift in the concentrations of various phenols in the tissue.The question must remain open whether a shift in the concentration of phenols some-how effected by phenylserine treatment determines both degree of susceptibility and rate of IAA oxidation independently, or whether the rate of IAA breakdown and the resulting change in IAA content in the plants is directly related to the degree of susceptibility.     

Avian malaria in African black-footed penguins

Ten captive-reared African black-footed penguins (Spheniscus demersus) from a large outdoor colony were monitored for avian malaria, using several diagnostic tests. One treatment regimen was evaluated. Thin smear blood evaluation enabled detection of seven parasitemias involving Plasmodium relictum and Plasmodium elongatum in the penguins. Leukocytosis (relative lymphocytosis) was characteristic of infected birds. Parasitemia was detected as early as 21 days prior to onset of clinical signs (depression, anorexia, regurgitation, pale mucous membranes, and respiratory distress). The single bird that died had clinical signs only a few hours prior to its death. Treatment consisted of 0.03 mg of primaquine phosphate base/kg body weight, administered orally once daily for 3 days. Oral chloroquine phosphate therapy, given simultaneously, was administered in an initial loading dose of 10 mg of chloroquine phosphate base/kg body weight, followed by doses of 5 mg/kg at 6, 18 and 24 hours after the initial chloroquine dose. This treatment regimen prevented mortality and cleared parasites from the blood. Recurrences of malaria occurred in two birds that had received this treatment.     

New potyvirus isolated from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Cryptotaenia japonica</Emphasis>

 A potyvirus, for which the name Japanese hornwort mosaic virus (JHMV) is proposed, was isolated from Japanese hornwort plants (Cryptotaenia japonica) with mosaic disease symptoms. The virus was used to inoculate mechanically 34 plants belonging to 33 species of 10 families. Of these species seven from two families were infected. Faint chlorotic spots appeared on the inoculated leaves of Chenopodium quinoa and C. amaranticolor, but no systemic infection occurred in these plants. JHMV systemically infected only Umbelliferae plants; they did not infect 26 other species in eight families. JHMV was transmitted in a nonpersistent manner by aphids (Myzus persicae). The virus was a flexuous rod-shaped particle about 750 nm in length. Sequencing the nucleotides in the 3′ terminal region of JHMV revealed that the coat protein contains 280 amino acids with a molecular mass of 32.2 kDa. The nucleotide sequence of the coat protein of JHMV had the highest similarity with that of Zantedeschia mosaic virus (83.3%) compared to those of other potyviruses (57.0%–64.9%). An antiserum against JHMV reacted strongly with JHMV and weakly with Potato virus Y. These results indicate that JHMV is a new potyvirus. Received: September 9, 2002 / Accepted: November 7, 2002 RID="*" ID="*" The nucleotide sequence determined in this work appears in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank nucleotide sequence databases with the accession number AB081518     

An outbreak of enzootic bovine leukosis in upper Egypt: clinical,laboratory and molecular-epidemiological studies

In 1989, 220 Holstein Friesian cattle (212 heifers and eight bulls) were imported from Minnesota, USA, to form a closed dairy herd in Arab El-Aoumar, Assiut, Upper Egypt. In November 1996, some abnormal signs such as loss of weight, decreased milk yield, external lymphadenopathy and decreased appetite were observed on this farm. Serological screening by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay revealed a seroprevalence of antibodies directed against bovine leukaemia virus (BLV) of 37.7% in cattle under 2 years old and of 72.8% in animals more than 2 years old. Diagnosis was confirmed by the detection of BLV proviral DNA using polymerase chain reaction with primers amplifying a fragment of the env gene. Out of 21 tested leucocyte fractions from individual animals, 15 were positive showing a BLV-specific amplicon of 444 base pairs. Analysis of the amplicons for restriction fragment length polymorphisms and DNA sequencing results allowed the isolates to be typed. Since this was the first recorded case of enzootic bovine leukosis in Upper Egypt, strict quarantine measures were adopted and all serologically positive animals in the herd were culled.     

Vertical Frontlimb Ground Reaction Forces of Sound and Lame Warmbloods Differ From Those in Quarter Horses

Lameness is a highly prevalent condition in horses and is the principal cause of removal from athletic activity in this species. In evidence-based veterinary medicine studies to evaluate non-setoidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) therapies, force plates are commonly used to objectively assess improvement of lameness. The objective of this study was to determine whether breed differences would influence force plate measurements in sound and lame riding horses. Force plate measurements of lame (n = 20) and sound (n = 18) Warmblood and lame (n = 15) and sound (n = 8) Quarter Horses were compared. Lameness was visually scored using the grade 0–5 American Association of Equine Practitioners (AAEP) lameness scale. Trotting sound Warmbloods loaded their frontlimbs with 118% body weight (BW) and their hindlimbs with 96% BW, whereas Quarter Horses only used 101% BW in the front and 92% BW in the hindlimbs (P < .05). Furthermore, it appeared and was estimated that, at trot, front-limb-lame Warmblood horses showed higher peak vertical force (PVF) values (grade 2: 89% BW; grade 3: 69% BW), than front-limb-lame Quarter Horses with similar lameness scores (grade 2: 78% BW; grade 3: 66% BW). In conclusion, peak vertical forces (PVF expressed in % BW) of either lame or sound horses seem to be influenced by breed differences between Warmblood and Quarter Horse riding horses. Possible conformation and gait differences enabled trotting Quarter Horses to demonstrate lower absolute PVF values than Warmbloods, whereas trotting lame Warmbloods showed a relatively larger decrease in frontlimb loading and thus in PVF than lame Quarter Horses at a trot. Thus, in studies in which objective lameness observations are recorded, breed differences should be taken into account when specific grades of lameness of a group of horses are to be objectively compared with another group.     

Prediction of multinomial probability of land use change using a bisection decomposition and logistic regression

Land use change is an important research area in landscape ecology and urban development. Prediction of land use change (urban development) provides critical information for making the right policies and management plans in order to maintain and improve ecosystem and city functions. Logistic regression is a widely used method to predict binomial probabilities of land use change when just two responses (change and no-change) are considered. However, in practice, more than two types of change are encountered and multinomial probabilities are therefore needed. The existing methods for predicting multinomial probabilities have limits in building multinomial probability models and are often based on improper assumptions. This is due to the lack of proper methodology and inadequate software. In this study, a procedure has been developed for building models to predict the multinomial probabilities of land use change and urban development. The foundation of this procedure consists of a special bisection decomposition system for the decomposition of multiple-class systems to bi-class systems, conditional probability inference, and logistic regression for binomial probability models. A case study of urban development has been conducted to evaluate this procedure. The evaluation results demonstrated that different samples and bisection decomposition systems led to very similar quality and performance in the developed multinomial probability models, which indicates the high stability of the proposed procedure for this case study.     

Effect of road density on abundance of white-footed mice

While several studies have demonstrated that roads can act as barriers to small mammal movement, the relationship between road density and small mammal abundance has not yet been investigated. In southeastern Ontario, Peromyscus leucopus (white-footed mice) suffer high over-winter mortality rates, resulting in small springtime populations and frequent local extinctions. Peromyscus leucopus movement is known to be inhibited by roads, which should result in lower rates of immigration into and recolonization of habitats in landscapes with high road density. We tested two predictions: (1) Forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities have a higher chance of P. leucopus being absent during the early spring than forest sites situated in landscapes with low road densities and (2) P. leucopus populations during the summer are smaller in forest sites situated in landscapes with high road densities than in landscapes with low road densities. We sampled P. leucopus in focal patches within nineteen landscapes (7 rural, low-road-density landscapes; 7 rural, high-road-density landscapes; 5 urban landscapes). There was no significant relationship between road density and the presence/absence of P. leucopus during the early spring. We found a significant positive effect of road density on P. leucopus relative abundance during the summer, even when we excluded the urban landscapes and based the analysis on only the 14 rural landscapes. Our results suggest that any negative effect of roads on P. leucopus populations, created by their inhibition to moving across roads, is far outweighed by some positive effect of roads on P. leucopus abundance. We suggest that the two most likely explanations are that roads are positively correlated with an important as-yet-undetermined component of habitat quality, or that roads positively affect P. leucopus by negatively affecting their predators.