Comparison of Ant Community Diversity and Functional Group Composition Associated to Land Use Change in a Seasonally Dry Oak Forest.

Ants have been used to assess land use conversion, because they reflect environmental change, and their response to these changes have been useful in the identification of bioindicators. We evaluated ant diversity and composition associated to different land use change in a temperate forest (above 2000 m asl) in Mexico. The study was carried out in "Flor del Bosque" Park a vegetation mosaic of native Oak Forests and introduced Eucalyptus and grasslands. Species richness, dominance and diversity rarefaction curves, based on ant morphospecies and functional groups, were constructed and compared among the three vegetation types, for the rainy and the dry seasons of 2008-2009. Jaccard and Sorensen incidence-based indices were calculated to obtain similarity values among all the habitats. The Oak Forest was a rich dominant community, both in species and functional groups; the Eucalyptus plantation was diverse with low dominance. The most seasonality habitat was the grassland, with low species and high functional group diversity during the dry seasons, but the reverse pattern during the wet season. The Oak Forest was more similar to the Eucalyptus plantation than to the grassland, particularly during the dry season. Oak Forests are dominated by Cold Climate Specialists, specifically Prenolepis imparis (Say). The Eucalyptus and the grassland are characterized by generalized Myrmicinae, as Pheidole spp. and Monomorium ebenium (Forel). The conservation of the native Oak Forest is primordial for the maintenance of Cold Climate Specialist ant communities. The microclimatic conditions in this forest, probably, prevented the invasion by opportunistic species.

Comparación de diferentes sondas de ADN para la detección de Plasmodium falciparum / Comparison of different DNA probes for the detection of Plasmodium falciparum

Las sondas pRepHind, Rep 20, p242B1-1, pPF-14, clon 26 y clon 34 se compararon a fin de examinar su capacidad para detectar P. falciparum en estudios de campo. Noventa y cuatro muestras de pacientes procedentes de Tumaco, región endémica de malaria situada en la Costa Pacífica colombiana y 88 muestras de pacientes provenientes de Villavicencio (Llanos Orientales), se estudiaron en experimentos de hibridación en dot-blot. Las sondas Rep 20, p242B1-1, pRepHind y pPF-14 detectaron hasta 17 pg de ADN purificado de P. falciparum, mientras que los clones 26 y 34 detectaron 425 pg de ADN