Automated software for counting and measuring Hyalella genus using artificial intelligence.

Amphipods belonging to the Hyalella genus are macroinvertebrates that inhabit aquatic environments. They are of particular interest in areas such as limnology and ecotoxicology, where data on the number of Hyalella individuals and their allometric measurements are used to assess the environmental dynamics of aquatic ecosystems. In this study, we introduce HyACS, a software tool that uses a model developed with the YOLOv3's architecture to detect individuals, and digital image processing techniques to extract morphological metrics of the Hyalella genus.

Assessing differential land use impacts on soil quality: A method based on log-response ratios and polygonal projections.

Soil quality indices (SQI) used for assessing soil degradation are often developed using additive scoring functions. However, these SQI may lack reference values for interpreting their outputs and the capacity to differentiate changes in specific variables. To overcome these limitations, this study introduces SQI using Log Response Ratios (LRR) as measures of size effects caused by land use in physical, chemical, and microbiological soil quality indicators.

Metabarcoding Reveals Impact of Different Land Uses on Fungal Diversity in the South-Eastern Region of Antioquia, Colombia.

Changes in soil fungal communities caused by land use have not been sufficiently studied in South American Andosols, which are considered key food production areas. Since fungal communities play an important role in soil functionality, this study analysed 26 soil samples of Andosols collected from locations devoted to conservation, agriculture and mining activities in Antioquia, Colombia, to establish differences between fungal communities as indicators of soil biodiversity loss using Illumina MiSeq metabarcoding on nuclear ribosomal ITS2 region. A non-metric multidimensional scaling allowed to explore driver factors of changes in fungal communities, while the significance of these variations was assessed by PERMANOVA.