Production of WW males lacking the masculine Z chromosome and mining the Macrobrachium rosenbergii genome for sex-chromosomes.

The cultivation of monosex populations is common in animal husbandry. However, preselecting the desired gender remains a major biotechnological and ethical challenge. To achieve an efficient biotechnology for all-female aquaculture in the economically important prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii), we achieved - for the first time - WW males using androgenic gland cells transplantation which caused full sex-reversal of WW females to functional males.

Effect of treated domestic wastewater on soil physicochemical and microbiological properties.

A main concern with reuse of treated domestic wastewater (DWW) in irrigation is its possible effect on the soil. Few studies have focused on DWW treated in on-site settings, which generally use low-tech systems that can be constructed and serviced locally. One such system is the recirculating vertical flow constructed wetland (RVFCW).

Soil microbial abundance and diversity along a low precipitation gradient.

The exploration of spatial patterns of abundance and diversity patterns along precipitation gradients has focused for centuries on plants and animals; microbial profiles along such gradients are largely unknown. We studied the effects of soil pH, nutrient concentration, salinity, and water content on bacterial abundance and diversity in soils collected from Mediterranean, semi-arid, and arid sites receiving approximately 400, 300, and 100 mm annual precipitation, respectively. Bacterial diversity was evaluated by terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism and clone library analyses and the patterns obtained varied with the climatic regions.

Mathematical model for analysis of recirculating vertical flow constructed wetlands.

The recirculating vertical flow constructed wetland (RVFCW) was developed for the treatment of domestic wastewater (DWW). In this system, DWW is applied to a vertical flow bed through which it trickles into a reservoir located beneath the bed. It is then recirculated back to the root zone of the bed.

Evaluating amplified rDNA restriction analysis assay for identification of bacterial communities.

Amplified ribosomal DNA restriction analysis (ARDRA) and restriction fragment length polymorphism were originally used for strain typing and for screening clone libraries to identify phylogenetic clusters within a microbial community. Here we used ARDRA as a model to examine the capacity of restriction-based techniques for clone identification, and the possibility of deriving phylogenetic information from ARDRA-based dendrograms. ARDRA was performed in silico on 48,759 sequences from the Ribosomal Database Project, and it was found that the fragmentation profiles were not necessarily unique for each sequence in the database, resulting in different species sharing fragmentation profiles.