Measurement of Wildlife Value Orientations Among Diverse Audiences: A Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analysis Among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White Communities

Wildlife value orientations (WVOs) are increasingly being used to describe broad societal shifts that are altering the way people perceive wildlife. Concurrent with these shifts is a diversification of cultural heritages that complicate comparisons of WVOs across cultures. Yet, when measuring WVOs across cultures, differences in WVOs may be genuine variations between the populations, or may be artifacts of the measurement instrument. Therefore, there is a need to determine if various cultures interact with the instrument uniformly. Three multiple group confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFA) examined how ethnicity, acculturation, and language spoken are related to a WVO scale’s performance within Hispanic and non-Hispanic white communities. Results of each MGCFA support the cross-cultural stability of the WVO factor structure. Additional cross-cultural WVO research is needed to expand the construct and assist natural resource practitioners in understanding diverse constituencies, but conducting a MGCFA analysis should be a necessary precondition when comparing WVOs across cultures.     

Predicting Acceptability of Jaguars and Pumas in the Atlantic Forest,Brazil

Jaguars and pumas are threatened species in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, especially at the borders of protected areas. This article assessed the influence of emotions, attitudes, existence value, and agency credibility on acceptability of big cats among rural residents living adjacent to two protected areas in this forest. Data from self-administrated questionnaires (n = 326) indicated those with positive attitudes toward big cats (β = .28, p < .001), those who valued the existence of big cats (β = .14, p < .05), those who would feel sorrow if big cats disappeared (β = .21, p < .001), and those who considered the managing agency as credible (β = .16, p = .002) were more accepting of big cats. The model provided theoretical and practical insights into large carnivore conservation. For example, given the significance of agency credibility, a positive relationship between park authorities and residents is crucial for big cat conservation.     

Effect of micronized pea seeds (Pisum sativum L.) as a substitute of soybean meal on tissue fatty acid composition and quality of broiler chicken meat

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of micronized pea seeds introduced into feed mixes for broilers on the slaughter yield, blood lipid parameters, content of fatty acids in selected tissues, and meat quality. The studies involved 150 1‐day‐old Ross 308 chicks split into three groups (for 42 days). The feed rations differed in terms of the source of proteins: in the control group (C), it was post‐extraction soybean meal (SBM) 100%; in group I, SBM 50% and micronized peas 50%; and in group II, micronized peas only, 100%. Irradiated pea seeds added to the feed ration for chicks reduced the fattening grade of carcasses (P < 0.05). Additionally, significant improvement of blood lipid indices was recorded. The share of the irradiated pea seeds in feed mixes decreased the share of saturated fatty acids in the muscles and abdominal fat and had a positive effect on the n‐6/n‐3 ratio, hypocholesterolemic / hypercholesterolemic ratio, as well as the atherogenic and thrombogenic indices (P < 0.05).     

Influence of imported sport horses on the genetic evaluation of Swedish Warmblood stallions

There is substantial international influence on the Swedish Warmblood (SWB) sport horse population. The SWB Association suspects that imported horses are pre-selected based on their anticipated performance level, which could lead to biased estimated breeding values (EBVs) for stallions. This study examined different strategies to handle records for imported horses in the genetic evaluation. The stallions were evaluated for 10 traits using 3 different EBV estimation methods that were compared based on ranking comparisons of stallions, accuracy, correlations and absolute differences between EBVs. The results showed that the stallions’ EBVs were affected by imported offspring which, as a group, had higher average scores than horses born in Sweden. Sire EBVs differed by up to 0.6 genetic standard deviation of the trait between methods for stallions with >50% imported offspring. Excluding imported offspring lowered the accuracies and caused larger re-ranking compared with including a fixed effect of origin in the model.     

Accuracy of genomic prediction using imputed whole‐genome sequence data in white layers

There is an increasing interest in using whole‐genome sequence data in genomic selection breeding programmes. Prediction of breeding values is expected to be more accurate when whole‐genome sequence is used, because the causal mutations are assumed to be in the data. We performed genomic prediction for the number of eggs in white layers using imputed whole‐genome resequence data including ~4.6 million SNPs. The prediction accuracies based on sequence data were compared with the accuracies from the 60 K SNP panel. Predictions were based on genomic best linear unbiased prediction (GBLUP) as well as a Bayesian variable selection model (BayesC). Moreover, the prediction accuracy from using different types of variants (synonymous, non‐synonymous and non‐coding SNPs) was evaluated. Genomic prediction using the 60 K SNP panel resulted in a prediction accuracy of 0.74 when GBLUP was applied. With sequence data, there was a small increase (~1%) in prediction accuracy over the 60 K genotypes. With both 60 K SNP panel and sequence data, GBLUP slightly outperformed BayesC in predicting the breeding values. Selection of SNPs more likely to affect the phenotype (i.e. non‐synonymous SNPs) did not improve the accuracy of genomic prediction. The fact that sequence data were based on imputation from a small number of sequenced animals may have limited the potential to improve the prediction accuracy. A small reference population (n = 1004) and possible exclusion of many causal SNPs during quality control can be other possible reasons for limited benefit of sequence data. We expect, however, that the limited improvement is because the 60 K SNP panel was already sufficiently dense to accurately determine the relationships between animals in our data.     

收获期对玉米茎秸产量和营养价值的影响

研究适于云南亚热带地区的玉米品种.结果表明:玉米青秸产量以蜡熟期最高,干秸产量以完熟期最高;粗蛋白质产量和产奶净能量(NEL)均以蜡熟期最高;专用青贮玉米、粮饲玉米和普通玉米蜡熟期鲜秸产量分别为108.9、111.7和127.5 t/hm2,干秸产量为33.4、36.4和40.7 t/hm2,粗蛋白质产量为2.7、2.9和3.4 t/hm2,产奶净能量为49825.8、57789.4和64430.3 Mcal/t/hm2;高产优质玉米品种为京科9号、樱红和路单4号.     

抗氰烯菌酯假禾谷镰孢突变体的诱导及其生物学特性

为评估引起小麦茎基腐病的病原菌假禾谷镰孢Fusarium pseudograminearum对氰烯菌酯的抗性风险,对5株敏感菌株进行了室内药剂驯化,获得33株抗性突变体,突变频率为16.5%,其对氰烯菌酯的抗性水平范围为7.39～1 665.76倍,3株表现低抗,4株表现中抗,26株表现高抗;发现在myosin-5基因上存在11种抗性突变类型,其中217位的丝氨酸突变为亮氨酸(S217L)、420位的谷氨酸突变为赖氨酸(E420K)和135位的丙氨酸突变为苏氨酸(A135T)为主要突变类型,其比例分别为45.5%、15.2%和9.1%。S217L型抗性突变体的产孢量显著下降,菌丝生长速率和致病力与亲本菌株无显著差异。E420K型抗性突变体的菌丝生长速率和致病力显著下降,产孢量与亲本菌株无显著差异。A135T型抗性突变体的菌丝生长速率和产孢量与亲本菌株无显著差异。研究结果表明假禾谷镰孢在药剂选择压力下易形成氰烯菌酯的抗性群体,对氰烯菌酯存在中到高等的潜在抗性风险,其myosin-5的点突变与其对氰烯菌酯的抗性相关。     

基于最大熵模型预测小火蚁在我国的适生区

小火蚁是中国大陆新发现的重要外来入侵害虫, 目前对该虫的传入来源和在我国的适生区范围尚不明确?为明确我国小火蚁适生区范围, 有效防控该虫在我国的扩散和蔓延, 本研究通过该虫全球已有的分布数据, 采用最大熵模型对其适生区进行了预测?研究表明, 最大熵模型预测小火蚁适生区精度较高?预测结果显示, 我国小火蚁的潜在适生区主要分布于南方, 其中, 高适生区分布在台湾?海南?云南南部边境?广西西南局部?福建西南部?广东南部及其沿海地区?预测结果与该物种现有地理范围的生态条件一致?年降水量对小火蚁的适生性影响最大, 理论年降水量为2 040 mm时小火蚁分布的概率最高?随着全球气候变暖, 未来我国小火蚁的适生区有向北扩大的趋势, 但主要适生区还是以南方为主?