Effects of Culture Area,Stocking Density,and Shrimp and Fish Polyculture on the Cost Efficiency of Hard Clam,Meretrix meretrix,Culture: A Case Study of Hard Clam Farms in Yunlin,Taiwan

Using the hard clam farms in Yunlin, Taiwan as examples, this study analyzes the effects of culture area, stocking density, and shrimp and fish polyculture on the cost efficiency (CE) of hard clam farming. A data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to estimate the farms' technical efficiency (TE), allocative efficiency (AE), and CE values. The findings show that the mean TE, AE, and CE values of hard clam farms are 0.74, 0.57, and 0.43, respectively. The TE value is higher than the AE value, which indicates that cost inefficiency is mainly attributable to poor AE. Tobit regression results suggest that there are positive relationships between CE and both culture area and operator experience. Hard clam stocking density and age of the operators have negative effects on CE. Hard clam culture areas larger than 2 ha and a stocking density of 1.1–1.2 million hard clams per hectare have higher CEs than smaller culture areas and smaller or larger stocking densities. The use of sand shrimp, white shrimp, kuruma shrimp, and grass shrimp for polyculture and the use of milkfish and silver sea bream for polyculture are both associated with high CEs.     

亚洲地区饲料中霉菌毒素危害的真实情况

霉菌毒素是动物饲料中具有危害性的成分,它们可导致畜禽多种难以判断的综合病症.霉菌毒素通常导致动物的生产性能下降,免疫机能抑制,导致动物患病,进而通过动物的肉、奶、内脏进入人类的食品链中,危害人类的健康.对这些易受环境和气候影响的天然毒素进行常规地检查和实时监控是非常有必要的.这将有助于饲料生产企业做好控制动物体内霉菌毒素潜在问题的准备,饲料生产企业或通过选择使用正确有效的霉菌毒素吸附剂,添加到饲料中以吸附饲料中的霉菌毒素;或避免购买和使用来自问题地区的霉变饲料原料.     

Ecological risk assessment of species impacted by fisheries in waters off eastern Taiwan

An ecological risk assessment was undertaken using productivity‐susceptibility analysis (PSA) to determine the relative vulnerability of 52 species caught by fisheries in the waters off eastern Taiwan. Overall, eight and 20 species were classified as having high and moderate vulnerability, respectively, and the remaining 24 species were classified as having low vulnerability. The species with the highest vulnerability scores were caught mainly by longline and gillnet fisheries, highlighting the need for improved data collection to facilitate a more detailed investigation using more quantitative methods. The data quality analysis indicated that the quality of data was classified as “moderate” for economically important species. However, many species were considered data‐limited and thus collecting high‐resolution catch and effort information and conducting biological studies, especially relating to age, growth and reproduction, are recommended to improve the reliability of outputs from data‐limited assessments such as PSA.     

Demography and population projection of <Emphasis Type="Italic">Myzus persicae</Emphasis> (Sulz.) (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on five pepper (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Capsicum annuum</Emphasis> L.) cultivars

The green peach aphid, Myzus persicae (Sulzer) (Hemiptera: Aphididae), is a major pest of pepper. In this study, we collected data on the development, survival, fecundity, and proportion of apterous and alate forms of green peach aphid reared on five commercial pepper cultivars (Amiral, Erciyes, Mert, Mertcan, and Naz) at 25?±?1°C, 60?±?5% RH, and a photoperiod of 16:8 (L:D) h. We analyzed the life history raw data by using the age-stage, two-sex life table. The shortest development time (6.66 days) and highest fecundity (62.68 individuals) occurred on the Erciyes cultivar. The highest intrinsic rate of increase (r?=?0.332 d^?1), finite rate of increase (λ?=?1.394 d^?1), net reproductive rate (R₀?=?62.7 offspring) and shortest mean generation time (T?=?12.45 d) also occurred on the Erciyes cultivar; while the lower fitness occurred on the Amiral, Mertcan and Naz cultivars. Our results compared differences in the population growth rate of M. persicae on different pepper cultivars. This information will be useful to individuals working in pest management programs particularly those involving M. persicae.     

上海蔬菜蚜虫真菌病的观察

虫生藻菌科(Entomophthoraceae)的致病性真菌,特别是虫霉属(Empusa)与虫生藻菌属(Ento-mophthora)二属真菌能在害虫种群中突然出现流行病,在几天内抑制害虫的猖獗。近年来 I.M.Hall 等(1958)对侵染斑点苜蓿蚜(Theriaphismaculata Bu ckton)的五种虫生藻菌进行人工培养繁殖,     

Glutathione Transferase Isozymes Involved in Insecticide Resistance of Diamondback Moth Larvae

In addition to the three glutathione transferase (GST) isozymes already identified in diamondback moth larvae, Plutella xylostella (L.), a fourth one, GST-4, was purified from a teflubenzuron (TFB)-resistant strain. This GST isozyme was similar to GST-3 in terms of biochemical and toxicological properties. GST-4, a homodimer with a subunit molecular mass of 26.6 kDa and a pI of ca. 8.9, displayed even stronger substrate preference than GST-3 for 1,2-dichloro-4-nitrobenzene and several organophosphorus insecticides, i.e., parathion, methyl parathion, and paraoxon. These two proteins were highly immunorelated and shared at least the first eight amino acids at the N-terminus. Immunoblotting analysis indicated that polyclonal antiserum raised against GST-3 cross-reacted with GST-1 and GST-2 at least 40-fold less intensely than with the antigen. Using this antiserum as probe, higher amounts and greater variations of GST-3/GST-4 were observed in larvae of a methyl parathion- and a TFB-resistant strain compared with a susceptible and a fenvalerate-resistant strain. Among the six lepidopterous insects examined, only Spodoptera exigua larvae clearly had proteins immunorelated to GST-3/GST-4 of diamondback moth. No such cross-reactivity was observed in Musca domestica, Drosophila melanogaster, and Aedes aegypti.     

水稻分支酶基因 Sbe1和 Sbe3 cDNA的克隆及全序列分析

 通过改良的RT PCR法合成了水稻未成熟种子胚乳cDNA库，并以此为模板，用PCR技术从粳稻品种武运粳7号中克隆了分别编码淀粉分支酶SBEⅠ和SBEⅢ的2个基因Sbe1和Sbe3。序列分析表明，克隆Sbe1和Sbe3基因的大小分别为2490 bp和2481 bp，包含了基因完整的编码序列。Sbe3基因与已发表基因全序列完全相同，同源性达100%；Sbe1基因与已发表基因序列有4个碱基不同，同源性为99.84%，推导氨基酸序列的差异为2个。