Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and validation of a Latin American Spanish version of the ID Migraine screening test.

OBJECTIVE: To translate, culturally adapt, and validate a version of the ID Migraine into Latin American Spanish. BACKGROUND: Although still considered a common diagnosis, half of the patients with migraine in Latin America experience diagnostic delay. The ID Migraine is a test developed in 2003 as a valuable tool for the early diagnosis of migraine at the primary care level; however, there is no validated Spanish or culturally adapted version for the Spanish-speaking population. METHODS: This is an analytical, translation, and test-validation study. We performed back translation and cross-cultural adaptation. The Latin American Spanish version ID Migraine MX was applied to headache clinic patients from March 2021 to January 2022 to perform a validation process against the gold standard: blinded expert diagnosis according to the International Classification of Headache Disorders, 3rd edition (ICHD-3), criteria. RESULTS: One hundred seventeen patients from the headache clinic of the National Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery of Mexico City were screened. We found 62/117 (53%) patients positive for screening with ID Migraine MX, and 47/117 (40%) positive for migraine according to ICHD-3 criteria. A sensitivity (95% CI) of 0.91 (0.80-0.97), specificity of 0.73 (0.61-0.82), positive predictive value of 0.694 (0.57-0.794), and negative predictive value of 0.93 (0.83-0.97) were obtained. The positive likelihood ratio was 3.38 (2.27-4.99), and the negative likelihood ratio was 0.12 (0.04-0.30). After calling the patients 1 month after the first interview, the calculated Kappa test-retest was 0.75 (p = 0.001). CONCLUSION: A translated and cross-culturally adapted version into Spanish of the ID Migraine was obtained, with a diagnostic performance similar to the original instrument. Clinicians may use this test at the first level of care to reduce the rate of misdiagnosis and the time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis and treatment of migraine.

Enzymatic Pretreatment with Laccases from Lentinus sajor-caju Induces Structural Modification in Lignin and Enhances the Digestibility of Tropical Forage Grass (Panicum maximum) Grown under Future Climate Conditions.

Since laccase acts specifically in lignin, the major contributor to biomass recalcitrance, this biocatalyst represents an important alternative to the pretreatment of lignocellulosic biomass. Therefore, this study investigates the laccase pretreatment and climate change effects on the hydrolytic performance of Panicum maximum. Through a Trop-T-FACE system, P. maximum grew under current (Control (C)) and future climate conditions: elevated temperature (2 °C more than the ambient canopy temperature) combined with elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration(600 µmol mol-1), name as eT+eC. Pretreatment using a laccase-rich crude extract from Lentinus sajor caju was optimized through statistical strategies, resulting in an increase in the sugar yield of P. maximum biomass (up to 57%) comparing to non-treated biomass and enabling hydrolysis at higher solid loading, achieving up to 26 g L-1. These increments are related to lignin removal (up to 46%) and lignin hydrophilization catalyzed by laccase. Results from SEM, CLSM, FTIR, and GC-MS supported the laccase-catalyzed lignin removal. Moreover, laccase mitigates climate effects, and no significant differences in hydrolytic potential were found between C and eT+eC groups. This study shows that crude laccase pretreatment is a potential and sustainable method for biorefinery solutions and helped establish P. maximum as a promising energy crop.

Changes in soil water availability and air-temperature impact biomass allocation and C:N:P stoichiometry in different organs of Stylosanthes capitata Vogel.

Temperature and soil water availability play important roles in the biogeochemical cycles of essential elements for plant growth, such as carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P). In this study, we investigated how drought and warming impact C:N:P stoichiometric ratios of different plant organs (leaves, inflorescences, and stems), and biomass allocation and production of a field-grown pasture of Stylosanthes capitata, a tropical forage legume. We evaluated the effects of elevated temperature (+2 °C above ambient temperature) under two conditions of soil water availability, irrigated, and non-irrigated. In general, we observed that different functional plant organs showed distinct responses to drought and warming demonstrating how important is to evaluate different functional plant organs to unravel crop nutrient dynamics. In addition, interactive effects between warming and drought were observed in many situations, highlighting the importance of multifactorial studies. Our data showed that warming produced plants with more inflorescences, decreasing leaf:inflorescence ratio. However, only warming under well-watered conditions improved biomass production (in 38%). Warmed and irrigated plants showed higher stoichiometric homeostasis compared to other treatments. In an opposite direction, drought decreased P concentration and increased N:P ratios in different organs, reducing the stoichiometric homeostasis under both conditions of temperature. We have concluded that warm and well-watered conditions without restrictions in soil nutrient availability can enhance plant production, presumably due to a higher level of stoichiometric homeostasis.

Fungal communities differentially respond to warming and drought in tropical grassland soil.

Climate change is predicted to cause more extreme events, such as heatwaves, and different precipitation patterns. The effects of warming and short-term drought on soil microbial communities, in particular fungal communities, remain largely unexplored under field conditions. Here, we evaluated how the fungal community of a tropical grassland soil responds to these changes. A field experiment was carried out in a temperature free-air controlled enhancement (T-FACE) facility in Ribeirão Preto, Brazil. The isolated and combined effects of drought and a 2°C increase in temperature were investigated. Based on metabarcoding of the ITS2 region, a total of 771 operational taxonomic units were observed. While warming affected the community structure, drought affected the alpha diversity, and the interaction between warming and drought affected both diversity and structure. The change in community composition driven by warming affected only the less abundant species (>1% of the total sequences). The aspect of the fungal communities that was most affected was diversity, which was increased by drought (p < .05), mostly by reducing the dominance of a single species, as observed in the watered plots. In a phylogenetic context, some fungal taxa were favoured by changes in temperature (Hypocreales) and drought (Sordariales) or disadvantaged by both (Pleosporales). It was of note that a water deficit increased the abundance of phytopathogenic fungi, such as Curvularia, Thielavia and Fusarium species. Overall, our results provide evidence that fungal communities in tropical grassland soils have greater sensitivity to drought than to temperature, which might increase the incidence of certain soil-borne diseases.

Warming and water deficit impact leaf photosynthesis and decrease forage quality and digestibility of a C4 tropical grass.

Global warming is predicted to cause more intense extreme events such as heat waves, flooding and severe droughts, producing significant effects on agriculture. In tropics, climate change will severely impact livestock production affecting water availability, forage quality and food for cattle. We investigated the isolated and combined effects of soil water deficit (wS) and + 2°C increase in canopy temperature (eT) on leaf gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence, carbohydrate content, forage quality and in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) of a field-grown C4 tropical forage grass Panicum maximum Jacq. using a temperature-free air-controlled enhancement (T-FACE) system. The wS and eT treatments showed no effects on photosystem II photochemistry. However, wS under ambient temperature decreased net photosynthesis rate (A), stomatal conductance (gs ) and maximum rate of carboxylation of Rubisco (Vcmax ), leading to a reduced starch content in leaves. A 16% reduction in leaf dry mass (LDM) and reduction in forage quality by increasing fibers, reducing crude protein (CP) and decreasing the IVDMD was also observed by effect of wS. Warming under adequate soil moisture (eT) significantly increased LDM by 25% but reduced the forage quality, increasing the lignin content and reducing starch, CP and digestibility. The combined wSeT treatment reduced A, gs , Vcmax and the forage quality. When compared to control, the lignin content in leaves increased by 43, 28 and 17% in wS, eT and wSeT, respectively, causing a significant reduction in IVDMD. We concluded that despite physiological mechanisms to acclimate to warming, both warming and water deficit will impair the quality and digestibility of C4 tropical pastures.

Modeling correlated marker effects in genome-wide prediction via Gaussian concentration graph models.

In genome-wide prediction, independence of marker allele substitution effects is typically assumed; however, since early stages in the evolution of this technology it has been known that nature points to correlated effects. In statistics, graphical models have been identified as a useful and powerful tool for covariance estimation in high dimensional problems and it is an area that has recently experienced a great expansion. In particular, Gaussian concentration graph models (GCGM) have been widely studied. These are models in which the distribution of a set of random variables, the marker effects in this case, is assumed to be Markov with respect to an undirected graph G. In this paper, Bayesian (Bayes G and Bayes G-D) and frequentist (GML-BLUP) methods adapting the theory of GCGM to genome-wide prediction were developed. Different approaches to define the graph G based on domain-specific knowledge were proposed, and two propositions and a corollary establishing conditions to find decomposable graphs were proven. These methods were implemented in small simulated and real datasets. In our simulations, scenarios where correlations among allelic substitution effects were expected to arise due to various causes were considered, and graphs were defined on the basis of physical marker positions. Results showed improvements in correlation between phenotypes and predicted additive genetic values and accuracies of predicted additive genetic values when accounting for partially correlated allele substitution effects. Extensions to the multiallelic loci case were described and some possible refinements incorporating more flexible priors in the Bayesian setting were discussed. Our models are promising because they allow incorporation of biological information in the prediction process, and because they are more flexible and general than other models accounting for correlated marker effects that have been proposed previously.

Left ureteral appendiceal interposition: exercise caution and do not be mislead by postoperative radiological obstruction.

Postoperative imaging after appendiceal ureteral interposition may be difficult to interpret, misguiding the urologist towards intervention. We present a case in which radiological obstruction was not endorsed by a 99TcDTPA nephrogram, with favorable outcome after conservative treatment.

Joint genome-wide prediction in several populations accounting for randomness of genotypes: A hierarchical Bayes approach. I: Multivariate Gaussian priors for marker effects and derivation of the joint probability mass function of genotypes.

It is important to consider heterogeneity of marker effects and allelic frequencies in across population genome-wide prediction studies. Moreover, all regression models used in genome-wide prediction overlook randomness of genotypes. In this study, a family of hierarchical Bayesian models to perform across population genome-wide prediction modeling genotypes as random variables and allowing population-specific effects for each marker was developed. Models shared a common structure and differed in the priors used and the assumption about residual variances (homogeneous or heterogeneous). Randomness of genotypes was accounted for by deriving the joint probability mass function of marker genotypes conditional on allelic frequencies and pedigree information. As a consequence, these models incorporated kinship and genotypic information that not only permitted to account for heterogeneity of allelic frequencies, but also to include individuals with missing genotypes at some or all loci without the need for previous imputation. This was possible because the non-observed fraction of the design matrix was treated as an unknown model parameter. For each model, a simpler version ignoring population structure, but still accounting for randomness of genotypes was proposed. Implementation of these models and computation of some criteria for model comparison were illustrated using two simulated datasets. Theoretical and computational issues along with possible applications, extensions and refinements were discussed. Some features of the models developed in this study make them promising for genome-wide prediction, the use of information contained in the probability distribution of genotypes is perhaps the most appealing. Further studies to assess the performance of the models proposed here and also to compare them with conventional models used in genome-wide prediction are needed.

Joint genome-wide prediction in several populations accounting for randomness of genotypes: A hierarchical Bayes approach. II: Multivariate spike and slab priors for marker effects and derivation of approximate Bayes and fractional Bayes factors for the complete family of models.

This study corresponds to the second part of a companion paper devoted to the development of Bayesian multiple regression models accounting for randomness of genotypes in across population genome-wide prediction. This family of models considers heterogeneous and correlated marker effects and allelic frequencies across populations, and has the ability of considering records from non-genotyped individuals and individuals with missing genotypes in any subset of loci without the need for previous imputation, taking into account uncertainty about imputed genotypes. This paper extends this family of models by considering multivariate spike and slab conditional priors for marker allele substitution effects and contains derivations of approximate Bayes factors and fractional Bayes factors to compare models from part I and those developed here with their null versions. These null versions correspond to simpler models ignoring heterogeneity of populations, but still accounting for randomness of genotypes. For each marker loci, the spike component of priors corresponded to point mass at 0 in RS, where S is the number of populations, and the slab component was a S-variate Gaussian distribution, independent conditional priors were assumed. For the Gaussian components, covariance matrices were assumed to be either the same for all markers or different for each marker. For null models, the priors were simply univariate versions of these finite mixture distributions. Approximate algebraic expressions for Bayes factors and fractional Bayes factors were found using the Laplace approximation. Using the simulated datasets described in part I, these models were implemented and compared with models derived in part I using measures of predictive performance based on squared Pearson correlations, Deviance Information Criterion, Bayes factors, and fractional Bayes factors. The extensions presented here enlarge our family of genome-wide prediction models making it more flexible in the sense that it now offers more modeling options.

On the Bayesness, minimaxity and admissibility of point estimators of allelic frequencies.

In this paper, decision theory was used to derive Bayes and minimax decision rules to estimate allelic frequencies and to explore their admissibility. Decision rules with uniformly smallest risk usually do not exist and one approach to solve this problem is to use the Bayes principle and the minimax principle to find decision rules satisfying some general optimality criterion based on their risk functions. Two cases were considered, the simpler case of biallelic loci and the more complex case of multiallelic loci. For each locus, the sampling model was a multinomial distribution and the prior was a Beta (biallelic case) or a Dirichlet (multiallelic case) distribution. Three loss functions were considered: squared error loss (SEL), Kulback-Leibler loss (KLL) and quadratic error loss (QEL). Bayes estimators were derived under these three loss functions and were subsequently used to find minimax estimators using results from decision theory. The Bayes estimators obtained from SEL and KLL turned out to be the same. Under certain conditions, the Bayes estimator derived from QEL led to an admissible minimax estimator (which was also equal to the maximum likelihood estimator). The SEL also allowed finding admissible minimax estimators. Some estimators had uniformly smaller variance than the MLE and under suitable conditions the remaining estimators also satisfied this property. In addition to their statistical properties, the estimators derived here allow variation in allelic frequencies, which is closer to the reality of finite populations exposed to evolutionary forces.

Traffic-related air pollution biomonitoring with Tradescantia pallida (Rose) Hunt. cv. purpurea Boom in Brazil.

This study aimed to verify the capacity of Tradescantia pallida in the biomonitoring of air pollution in urban areas with different traffic intensities and under varying environmental conditions. Experiments were carried out in Ribeirão Preto, in the Southeastern Brazil, with more than 660,000 inhabitants and a fleet of more than 485,000 motor vehicles. Ten seedlings of T. pallida were exposed in three areas in the city, differing in traffic vehicle flow, in two seasons (wet and dry). At the end of each sampling period, which lasted 4 months, samples of leaves were collected, and the content of As, Ba, Ca, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, Mg, Mn, P, Pb, S, and Zn was determined by inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (ICP-MS). The same elements were determined in soil samples for a seasonal characterization in conjunction with secondary data of environmental parameters. Additionally, micronucleus assay with early pollen tetrad cells of Tradescantia (Trad-MN) was conducted by collecting flower buds and analyzing the micronuclei frequencies in pollen mother cells. Although pollutant levels in air were below the Brazilian legal limits, plants exposed in the high-traffic flow area presented higher concentrations of elements related to vehicle emissions, especially under dry conditions, and higher micronuclei frequency in pollen mother cells. These results show the sensitivity of T. pallida to low-level urban air pollution and its suitability as bioindicator for trace elements. This alternative tool for biomonitoring can serve as a support methodology for the adoption of more restrictive public environmental policies in Brazil and extendible to other developing countries.

Effect of necrosectomy and vacuum-assisted closure (VAC) on mitochondrial function and oxidative stress markers in severe acute pancreatitis.

BACKGROUND: Severe acute pancreatitis (SAP) is associated with high morbidity and mortality. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate whether necrosectomy, alone or combined with vacuum-assisted closure (VAC), has any additional beneficial effects on mitochondrial function and/or oxidative stress markers in SAP. METHODS: Patients with SAP, APACHE II score > 8, and inadequate response to management in an intensive care unit were included in a prospective observational study. Sixteen underwent necrosectomy and 24 underwent necrosectomy plus VAC every 48 h. Patients were then categorized as survivors or deceased. Submitochondrial membrane fluidity of platelets and F0F1-ATPase hydrolysis were measured to represent mitochondrial function. Oxidative/nitrosative stress was measured using lipoperoxides (LPOs), nitric oxide (NO), erythrocyte membrane fluidity, and total antioxidant capacity (TAC). RESULTS: Membrane fluidity in submitochondrial particles of platelets remained significantly increased throughout the study, and then eventually rised in deceased patients managed with necrosectomy + VAC vs. survivors (p < 0.041). Hydrolysis was significantly increased from baseline to endpoint in all patients, predominating in those who died after management with necrosectomy (p < 0.03). LPO increased in all patients, and necrosectomy was more efficient for the eventual decrease in survivors (p < 0.039). NO was found to be increased for the baseline-endpoint result among both survivors and deceased patients with both management options. Erythrocyte membrane fluidity was increased in survivors managed with necrosectomy + VAC, and eventually returned to normal (p < 0.045). TAC was found to be consumed in all patients for the duration of the study. CONCLUSIONS: Mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative/ nitrosative stress with significant systemic antioxidant consumption were found. Necrosectomy was more efficient and better cleared LPOs. Necrosectomy + VAC improved erythrocyte membrane fluidity and increased survival.

Balancing trade-offs: Enhanced carbon assimilation and productivity with reduced nutritional value in a well-watered C4 pasture under a warmer CO2-enriched atmosphere.

The concentration of atmospheric CO2 and temperature are pivotal components of ecosystem productivity, carbon balance, and food security. In this study, we investigated the impacts of a warmer climate (+2 °C above ambient temperature) and an atmosphere enriched with CO2 (600 ppm) on gas exchange, antioxidant enzymatic system, growth, nutritive value, and digestibility of a well-watered, managed pasture of Megathyrsus maximus, a tropical C4 forage grass, under field conditions. Elevated [CO2] (eC) improved photosynthesis and reduced stomatal conductance, resulting in increased water use efficiency and plant C content. Under eC, stem biomass production increased without a corresponding increase in leaf biomass, leading to a smaller leaf/stem ratio. Additionally, eC had negative impacts on forage nutritive value and digestibility. Elevated temperature (eT) increased photosynthetic gains, as well as stem and leaf biomass production. However, it reduced P and K concentration, forage nutritive value, and digestibility. Under the combined conditions of eC and eT (eCeT), eT completely offset the effects of eC on the leaf/stem ratio. However, eT intensified the effects of eC on photosynthesis, leaf C concentration, biomass accumulation, and nutritive value. This resulted in a forage with 12% more acid detergent fiber content and 28% more lignin. Additionally, there was a decrease of 19% in crude protein leading to a 15% decrease in forage digestibility. These changes could potentially affect animal feeding efficiency and feedback climate change, as ruminants may experience an amplification in methane emissions. Our results highlight the critical significance of conducting multifactorial field studies when evaluating plant responses to climate change variables.

Semiparametric generalized estimating equations for repeated measurements in cross-over designs.

A model for cross-over designs with repeated measures within each period was developed. It was obtained using an extension of generalized estimating equations that includes a parametric component to model treatment effects and a non-parametric component to model time and carry-over effects; the estimation approach for the non-parametric component is based on splines. A simulation study was carried out to explore the model properties. Thus, when there is a carry-over effect or a functional temporal effect, the proposed model presents better results than the standard models. Among the theoretical properties, the solution is found to be analogous to weighted least squares. Therefore, model diagnostics can be made by adapting the results from a multiple regression. The proposed methodology was implemented in the data sets of the cross-over experiments that motivated the approach of this work: systolic blood pressure and insulin in rabbits.

Adjustments in photosynthetic pigments, PS II photochemistry and photoprotection in a tropical C4 forage plant exposed to warming and elevated [CO2].

Global climate change will impact crops and grasslands, affecting growth and yield. However, is not clear how the combination of warming and increased atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations ([CO2]) will affect the photosystem II (PSII) photochemistry and the photosynthetic tissue photoinhibition and photoprotection on tropical forages. Here, we evaluated the effects of elevated [CO2] (∼600 µmol mol-1) and warming (+2 °C increase temperature) on the photochemistry of photosystem II and the photoprotection strategies of a tropical C4 forage Panicum maximum Jacq. grown in a Trop-T-FACE facility under well-watered conditions without nutrient limitation. Analysis of the maximum photochemical efficiency of PSII (Fv/Fm), the effective PSII quantum yield Y(II), the quantum yield of regulated energy dissipation Y(NPQ), the quantum yield of non-regulated energy dissipation Y(NO), and the malondialdehyde (MDA) contents in leaves revealed that the photosynthetic apparatus of plants did not suffer photoinhibitory damage, and plants did not increase lipid peroxidation in response to warming and [CO2] enrichment. Plants under warming treatment showed a 12% higher chlorophyll contents and a 58% decrease in α-tocopherol contents. In contrast, carotenoid composition (zeaxanthin and ß-carotene) and ascorbate levels were not altered by elevated [CO2] and warming. The elevated temperature increased both net photosynthesis rate and aboveground biomass but elevated [CO2] increased only net photosynthesis. Adjustments in chlorophyll, de-epoxidation state of the xanthophylls cycle, and tocopherol contents suggest leaves of P. maximum can acclimate to 2 °C warmer temperature and elevated [CO2] when plants are grown with enough water and nutrients during tropical autumn-winter season.

Warming offsets the benefits of elevated CO2 in water relations while amplifies elevated CO2-induced reduction in forage nutritional value in the C4 grass Megathyrsus maximus.

Tropical grasslands are very important to global carbon and water cycles. C4 plants have increased heat tolerance and a CO2 concentrating mechanism that often reduces responses to elevated concentrations of CO2 ([CO2]). Despite the importance of tropical grasslands, there is a scarcity of studies that elucidate how managed tropical grasslands will be affected by elevated [CO2] and warming. In our study, we used a combination of a temperature-free air-controlled enhancement (T-FACE) and a free-air carbon dioxide enrichment (FACE) systems to increase canopy temperature and [CO2] under field conditions, respectively. We warmed a field-grown pasture dominated by the C4 tropical forage grass Megathyrsus maximus by 2°C above ambient under two levels of [CO2] (ambient (aC) and elevated (eC - 600 ppm) to investigate how these two factors isolated or combined regulate water relations through stomatal regulation, and how this combination affects PSII functioning, biochemistry, forage nutritive value, and digestibility. We demonstrated that the effects of warming negated the effects of eC in plant transpiration, water potential, proline content, and soil moisture conservation, resulting in warming canceling the eCO2-induced improvement in these parameters. Furthermore, there were additive effects between eC and warming for chlorophyll fluorescence parameters and aboveground nutritive value. Warming sharply intensified the eCO2-induced decrease in crude protein content and increases in forage fibrous fraction and lignin, resulting in a smaller forage digestibility under a warmer CO2-enriched atmosphere. Our results highlight the importance of multifactorial studies when investigating global change impacts on managed ecosystems and the potential consequences for the global carbon cycle like amplification in methane emissions by ruminants and feeding a positive climate feedback system.

Future warming will change the chemical composition and leaf blade structure of tropical C3 and C4 forage species depending on soil moisture levels.

Temperature and soil moisture strongly affect the nutritional value and digestibility of forage plants through changes in leaf chemical composition or the proportion of leaf blade tissues. In this study, we aimed to evaluate leaf blade anatomical modifications of two tropical forage species, Stylosanthes capitata (C3) and Megathyrsus maximus (C4) under warmed conditions (+2 °C) at well-watered and rainfed conditions and investigate the interactions between leaf anatomical alterations, leaf chemical composition, and leaf digestibility. Experiments were conducted under field conditions using a Temperature-free air-controlled enhancement (T-FACE) system. We observed that plants under elevated temperature produced leaves with smaller stomata and thinner mesophyll tissue and reduced total leaf thickness, potentially impacting gas exchange. On the other hand, reduced soil moisture increased stomatal density and thickness of the adaxial epidermis. In both species, leaf fibrous fractions concentration increased under warmed and non-irrigated conditions, while crude protein concentration and digestibility decreased. However, leaf digestibility was associated with leaf chemical composition rather than the proportion of different leaf blade tissues. We concluded that although both species developed leaf anatomical modifications to acclimate under future warming conditions, leaf nutritional value and digestibility will be reduced, potentially impacting future livestock production and methane emissions by ruminants.

Anthelmintic effect of four extracts obtained from Caesalpinia coriaria foliage against the eggs and larvae of Haemonchus contortus.

To investigate the in vitro anthelmintic efficacy of dividivi (Caesalpinia coriaria), a traditional medicinal plant used in Central America and the northern part of South America, extracts from the foliage of this plant were subjected to the egg hatching test (EHT) and larval exsheathment inhibition test (LEIT), against Haemonchus contortus. Four different extracts were evaluated: acetone-water (AW), methanol-water (MW), acetone-water-dichloromethane (AWD) and methanol-water-dichloromethane (MWD). The concentrations used for the EHT and LEIT tests ranged from 500 to 4000 µg mL-1 and six repetitions per concentration. The effective concentrations (EC50) were calculated using Probit analysis. The EC50 for EHT were 2947.0, 3347.0, 3959.6 and 4538.7 µg mL-1 for MWD, MW, AW and AWD, respectively. The EC50 for LEIT were 2883.4, 5927.4, 9876.3 and 9955.4 µg mL-1 for AWD, AW, MWD and MW, respectively. The methanol extracts were the most effective in inhibiting the hatching of eggs, while the acetone extracts showed efficacy in inhibiting larval exsheathment. This study explains the importance that C. coriaria has as a medicinal plant in Central and South American countries.

Challenges of Biomass Utilization for Bioenergy in a Climate Change Scenario.

The climate changes expected for the next decades will expose plants to increasing occurrences of combined abiotic stresses, including drought, higher temperatures, and elevated CO2 atmospheric concentrations. These abiotic stresses have significant consequences on photosynthesis and other plants' physiological processes and can lead to tolerance mechanisms that impact metabolism dynamics and limit plant productivity. Furthermore, due to the high carbohydrate content on the cell wall, plants represent a an essential source of lignocellulosic biomass for biofuels production. Thus, it is necessary to estimate their potential as feedstock for renewable energy production in future climate conditions since the synthesis of cell wall components seems to be affected by abiotic stresses. This review provides a brief overview of plant responses and the tolerance mechanisms applied in climate change scenarios that could impact its use as lignocellulosic biomass for bioenergy purposes. Important steps of biofuel production, which might influence the effects of climate change, besides biomass pretreatments and enzymatic biochemical conversions, are also discussed. We believe that this study may improve our understanding of the plant biological adaptations to combined abiotic stress and assist in the decision-making for selecting key agronomic crops that can be efficiently adapted to climate changes and applied in bioenergy production.

How does leaf physiological acclimation impact forage production and quality of a warmed managed pasture of Stylosanthes capitata under different conditions of soil water availability?

Tropical pastures play a significant role in the global carbon cycle and are crucial for world livestock production. Despite its importance, there is a paucity of field studies that clarify how tropical pasture species will be affected by environmental changes predicted for tropical regions. Using a temperature-free air-controlled enhancement (T-FACE) system, we increased canopy temperature (+2 °C over ambient) and evaluated the effects of warming under two soil moisture conditions in a factorial design over the physiology, forage production, and forage quality of a tropical forage legume, Stylosanthes capitata. Under well-watered conditions, warming increased the PSII efficiency, net photosynthesis, and aboveground biomass accumulation, but reduced forage quality and digestibility by decreasing crude protein content and increasing lignin content. Non-irrigated conditions under ambient temperature reduced leaf water status presumably promoting the reduction in net photosynthesis, forage production, and forage quality and digestibility. Under the combination of canopy warming and non-irrigated conditions, warming mitigated the effects of reduced soil moisture on leaf photosynthesis and biomass production, but a significant interaction reduced forage quality and digestibility more than under isolated treatments of warming or non-irrigated conditions. We found a potential physiological acclimation of the tropical forage species to moderate warming when grown under rainfed or well-watered conditions. However, this acclimation was achieved due to a trade-off that reduced forage nutritional value and digestibility that may impact future animal feeding, livestock production, and would contribute to methane emissions.