Pathological study and molecular detection of zoonotic diseases in small ruminants at slaughterhouses in Mymensingh, Bangladesh.

Background and Aim: Slaughterhouses act as a significant public health hotspot in developing countries like Bangladesh. The study aimed to investigate small ruminants at slaughterhouses for pathological study and molecular detection of important zoonotic diseases. Materials and Methods: A total of 75 goats and 14 sheep were investigated from June 2019 to January 2020 at different slaughterhouses in Mymensingh division, Bangladesh. The targeted diseases were tuberculosis (TB), listeriosis, Q fever, brucellosis, anthrax, toxoplasmosis, hydatidosis, and linguatulosis. The tentative diagnosis was made based on gross and histopathological lesions. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was performed to confirm the causal agents of zoonotic diseases using disease-specific primers. Results: Grossly, caseous nodule formation in the visceral organs; enlarged and calcifications of mesenteric lymph nodes (MLNs); hydatid cyst formation in the liver were the predominant lesions observed. Histopathologically, granuloma, caseous necrosis, and calcifications admixed with acid-fast bacteria in the MLNs, liver, spleen, and kidney were seen as suggestive of infectivity due to TB. Septic lymphadenitis mixed with rod-shaped bacteria, doughnut granuloma, fibroplasia accompanied by eosinophils and lymphocytic infiltration in MLNs, and portal granuloma were observed in listeriosis, Q fever, linguatulosis, and toxoplasmosis suspected cases, respectively. The PCR amplified Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (372 bp), Mycobacterium bovis (600 bp), Listeria monocytogenes (517 bp), Toxoplasma gondii (512 bp), and Coxiella burnetii (687 bp) species-specific amplicons. In addition, linguatulosis and hydatidosis were identified in six and three goats, respectively. Brucellosis and anthrax were not detected in any cases. The slaughterhouse samples were also found to harbor the coexistence of different zoonotic pathogens. Conclusion: Deadly infectious zoonotic diseases in goats and sheep at slaughterhouses may cause widespread public health risks. As a result, more intensive monitoring and epidemiological surveys are required to successfully prevent and control zoonotic diseases.

Stomatal size and density trade-off varies with leaf phenology and species shade tolerance in a South Asian moist tropical forest.

The density and guard cell length of stomata regulate the physiological processes in plants. Yet, the variation of stomatal characteristics among different functional groups of trees is not been well understood. Particularly, a comprehensive understanding of stomatal behaviour in Bangladeshi moist forest trees is lacking. The study investigated how abaxial stomatal density (SD) and guard cell length (GCL) vary among tree functional types and leaf phenological groups in a moist tropical forest of Bangladesh. Cluster dendrogram revealed three groups of species based on SD and GCL. The independent sample t -test showed that there was a significant difference in SD between evergreen and deciduous tree species (t =4.18, P <0.001) but no significant difference in GCL between the two phenological groups. ANOVA revealed no significant difference in SD among the light demanding, intermediate shade tolerant and shade tolerant species (F =0.76, P =0.47). However, GCL significantly differed among the three functional groups (F =3.3, P <0.05). Maximum theoretical stomatal conductance (g max ) varied between evergreen and deciduous species but did not vary with species shade tolerance. In general, there was a significant trade-off between SD and GCL. However, the inverse relationship was stronger in deciduous and shade tolerant species than in evergreen and shade intolerant species. Leaf dry matter content was positively related with SD and negatively related with GCL. Specific leaf area and leaf thickness were not related to the stomatal traits. Our analyses suggest that leaf phenology and species shade tolerance need to be considered while estimating gas exchange through the stomata in tropical moist forests.

Flood signals in tree-ring δ18O and wood anatomical parameters of Lagerstroemia speciosa: Implications for developing flood management strategies in Bangladesh.

Bangladesh consists of 80% of the flood plain of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna river system (GBM), making the country one of the highest flood prone countries of the world. Due to the high rate of discharge of the GBM caused by the summer monsoon and the snowmelt of the Eastern Himalaya and Southern Tibetan Plateau due to climate change, Bangladesh witnessed 16 flood events over 1954-2017. We performed a multiproxy tree-ring analysis to investigate the impact of extreme flood events on tree growth, xylem anatomical parameters and oxygen isotope composition of tree-ring cellulose (δ18Otr) in a Bangladeshi moist tropical forest and to establish relationships between water level of the regional rivers and tree-ring parameters. By using pointer year analysis and comparing the pointer years with historical flood records (a cut-off threshold of the country's flooded land area of 33.3%), we identified the three extreme flood events (hereafter called flood years) 1974, 1988, and 1998 in Bangladesh. Superposed epoch analysis revealed significant changes in Tree-ring width (TRW), total vessel area (TVA), vessel density (VD), and δ18Otr during flood years. Flood associated hypoxic soil conditions reduced TRW up to 53% and TVA up to 28%, varying with flood events. In contrast, VD increased by 23% as a safety mechanism against flood induced hydraulic failure. Tree-ring δ18O significantly decreased during the flood years due to the amount effect in regional precipitation. Bootstrapped Pearson correlation analysis showed that wood anatomical variables encoded stronger river level signals than TRW and δ18Otr. Among the wood anatomical parameters, VD showed a strong relationship (r = -0.58, p < 0.01) with the water level of the Manu River, a regional river of the north-eastern part of Bangladesh, indicating that VD can be used as a reliable proxy for river level reconstruction. Our analyses suggest that multiproxy tree-ring analysis is a potential tool to study tropical moist forest responses to extreme flood events and to identify suitable proxies for reconstructing hydrological characteristics of South Asian rivers.

Zoonotic diseases appeared to be a major hurdle to successful deer farming in Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Due to the diversified lifestyle and fancy ecology associated with Chitra deer (Axis axis), deer farming has become popular in Bangladesh. Diseases may be the common constrain of successful deer farming. This study aims to investigate the pathological, bacteriological, and nucleic acid based technologies to identify specific causes of morbidity and mortality of captive deer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two deer farms and a park deer (designated as farm A, B, and C) entailing 87, 54, and 20 deer, respectively, showed illness and death constitute the study materials. A total of 42 deer died during this investigation. Following death, routine post-mortem examination, histopathology, impression smear staining, isolation, and identification of bacteria were carried out. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and reverse transcription PCR were carried out to safeguard the etiology. RESULTS: Clinically, farm A and B showed the acute phase of illness and park deer showed chronic illness. Case fatality rates were 90%, 92%, and 100% in farms A, B, and C deer, respectively. Pasteurella multocida and Streptococcus pneumoniae were identified from the visceral organs of farm A deer. Farm B deer was infected with Clostridium perfringens type A. Park deer was infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and hydatid cyst. CONCLUSION: The infectivity in farm A deer was due to stress as induced by punishing weather. The infectivity in farm B deer was due to feeding a higher volume of protein in the diet. The park C deer may optate infection from companion man and animals living around. The diseases of captive deer identified mainly were zoonotic. It needs extensive veterinary services and specialized technologies to identify these diseases, monitor the infectivity and eliminate the public health important diseases at early onset.

Critical Review of Lead Pollution in Bangladesh.

BACKGROUND: Lead (Pb) poses a severe threat to human health and the environment. Worldwide Pb production and consumption have significantly increased along with unplanned industrialization and urbanization, lead smelting, and lead-acid battery processing. The improper management of Pb-containing elements is responsible for Pb pollution. Lead's persistence in nature and bioaccumulation in the food chain can lead to adverse health impacts. OBJECTIVES: The present study aims to describe Pb contaminated sites in Bangladesh and Pb concentration in the atmosphere, water, sediments, soil, vegetables, fish, and other foods in Bangladesh. METHODS: The present study searched a total of 128 peer-reviewed articles based on a predefined set of criteria (keywords, peer-reviewed journals, and indexing in Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science, Springer, PubMed, Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ), and Bangladesh Journals Online (BanglaJOL) and exclusion criteria (predatory journal and absence of full text in English) and finally selected 63 articles (58 research articles and five (5) reports). The relevant findings on Pb exposure, sources, routes, diet, and impacts in Bangladesh were combined and presented. RESULTS: The reviewed studies identified 175 Pb contaminated sites through soil sample assessment in Bangladesh. The study determined Pb concentrations in air (0.09-376.58 µg/m3, mean 21.31 µg/m3), river water (0.0009-18.7 mg/l, mean 1.07 mg/l), river sediments (4.9-69.75 mg/kg, mean 32.08 mg/kg), fish (0.018-30.8 mg/kg, mean 5.01 mg/kg), soil (7.3-445 mg/kg, mean 90.34 mg/kg), vegetables (0.2-22.09 mg/kg, mean 4.33 mg/kg) and diet items (0.001-413.9 mg/kg, mean 43.22 mg/kg) of which 38.8%, 27.8%, 54.5%, 68.8%, 9.7% and 100% of samples, respectively, exceeded related World Health Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and Bangladesh Standard Testing Institution (BSTI) guidelines. The present study found that industrial soils are severely polluted with Pb (7.3-445 mg/kg) in Bangladesh. A high Pb concentration has been found in fish muscle and foods, including leafy and non-leafy vegetables collected from different places in Bangladesh. CONCLUSIONS: Lead-contaminated foods can enter the human body through dietary intake and consequently lead to long-term adverse health effects. This study may help policymakers to formulate national policies with effective mitigation plans to combat the adverse health impacts of Pb in Bangladesh. COMPETING INTERESTS: The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Tree-ring δ18O climate signals vary among tree functional types in South Asian tropical moist forests.

We present the first annually resolved and statistically reliable tree-ring δ18O (δ18OT) chronologies for the three South Asian tropical moist forest tree species (Chukrasia tabularis A. Juss., Toona ciliata M. Roem., and Lagerstroemia speciosa Roxb.) which differ in their shade tolerance and resistance to water stress. We found significantly higher mean δ18OT values in light-demanding T. ciliata than in intermediate shade tolerant C. tabularis and shade tolerant L. speciosa (p < 0.001). δ18OT in C. tabularis was mainly influenced by pre-monsoon vapor pressure deficit (VPD; r = -0.54, p < 0.01) and post monsoon maximum temperature (Tmax) (r = 0.52, p < 0.01). δ18OT in T. ciliata was strongly negatively correlated with a dry season drought index PDSI (r = -0.65, p < 0.001) and VPD (r = -0.58, p < 0.001). Pre-monsoon Tmax was strongly positively linked with δ18OT in L. speciosa (r = 0.65, p < 0.001), indicating that climatic influences on δ18OT are species-specific and vary among tree functional types. Although there was a week correlation between local precipitation and δ18OT in our studied species, we found a strong correlation between δ18OT and precipitation at a larger spatial scale. Linear mixed effect models revealed that multiple factors improved model performance only in C. tabularis, yielding the best model, which combined VPD and Tmax. The top models in T. ciliata and L. speciosa included only the single factors PDSI and Tmax, highlighting that the way C. tabularis interacts with climate is more complex when compared with other two species. Our analyses suggest that stable oxygen isotope composition in tree rings of South Asian tropical moist forest trees are a suitable proxy of local and regional climate variability and are an important tool for understanding the physiological mechanisms associated with the global hydrological cycle.

A global analysis on the effect of temperature, socio-economic and environmental factors on the spread and mortality rate of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We performed a global analysis with data from 149 countries to test whether temperature can explain the spatial variability of the spread rate and mortality of COVID-19 at the global scale. We performed partial correlation analysis and linear mixed effect modelling to evaluate the association of the spread rate and motility of COVID-19 with maximum, minimum, average temperatures and diurnal temperature variation (difference between daytime maximum and night-time minimum temperature) and other environmental and socio-economic parameters. After controlling the effect of the duration since the first positive case, partial correlation analysis revealed that temperature was not related with the spatial variability of the spread rate of COVID-19 at the global scale. Mortality was negatively related with temperature in the countries with high-income economies. In contrast, diurnal temperature variation was significantly and positively correlated with mortality in the low- and middle-income countries. Taking the country heterogeneity into account, mixed effect modelling revealed that inclusion of temperature as a fixed factor in the model significantly improved model skill predicting mortality in the low- and middle-income countries. Our analysis suggests that warm climate may reduce the mortality rate in high-income economies, but in low- and middle-income countries, high diurnal temperature variation may increase the mortality risk.

Disentangling the effects of atmospheric CO2 and climate on intrinsic water-use efficiency in South Asian tropical moist forest trees.

Due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the ratio of carbon fixed by assimilation to water lost by transpiration through stomatal conductance (intrinsic water-use efficiency, iWUE) shows a long-term increasing trend globally. However, the drivers of short-term (inter-annual) variability in iWUE of tropical trees are poorly understood. We studied the inter-annual variability in iWUE of three South Asian tropical moist forest tree species (Chukrasia tabularis A.Juss., Toona ciliata M. Roem. and Lagerstroemia speciosa L.) derived from tree-ring stable carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) in response to variations of environmental conditions. We found a significantly decreasing trend in carbon discrimination (Δ13C) and an increasing trend in iWUE in all the three species, with a species-specific long-term trend in intercellular CO2 concentration (Ci). Growing season temperatures were the main driver of inter-annual variability of iWUE in C. tabularis and L. speciosa, whereas previous year temperatures determined the iWUE variability in T. ciliata. Vapor pressure deficit was linked with iWUE only in C. tabularis. Differences in shade tolerance, tree stature and canopy position might have caused this species-specific variation in iWUE response to climate. Linear mixed effect modeling successfully simulated iWUE variability, explaining 41-51% of the total variance varying with species. Commonality analysis revealed that temperatures had a dominant influence on the inter-annual iWUE variability (64-77%) over precipitation (7-22%) and atmospheric CO2 concentration (3-6%). However, the long-term variations in iWUE were explicitly determined by the atmospheric CO2 increase (83-94%). Our results suggest that the elevated CO2 and concomitant global warming might have detrimental effects on gas exchange and other physiological processes in South Asian tropical moist forest trees.

Long-Term Hydraulic Adjustment of Three Tropical Moist Forest Tree Species to Changing Climate.

Xylem hydraulic adjustment to global climatic changes was reported from temperate, boreal, and Mediterranean tree species. Yet, the long-term hydraulic adjustment in tropical tree species has not been studied so far. Here we developed the first standard chronologies of three hydraulic trait variables for three South Asian moist forest tree species to analyze their long-term hydraulic responses to changing climate. Based on wood anatomical measurements, we calculated Hagen-Poiseuille hydraulically weighted vessel diameter (DH), potential specific hydraulic conductivity (KS), and vulnerability index (VX) and developed standard chronologies of these variables for Chukrasia tabularis, Toona ciliata, and Lagerstroemia speciosa which are different in their xylem structure, wood density, shade tolerance, growth rates, and habitat preferences. Bootstrap correlation analysis revealed that vapor pressure deficit (VPD) strongly positively influenced the xylem water transport capacity in C. tabularis, whereas T. ciliata was affected by both temperature and precipitation. The hydraulic conductivity of L. speciosa was mainly affected by temperature. Different adjustment strategies were observed among the species, probably due to the differences in life history strategies and xylem properties. No positive relationship of conductivity and radial growth was found, but a trade-off between hydraulic safety and efficiency was observed in all studied species.