Search

The use of medicinal plants represents an alternative method for bacterial control due to their chemical compositions. This study's objective was to determine the inhibitory capacity of Larrea tridentata extracts against microbial strains of clinical interest. Four extracts were prepared, their phytochemical profiles were determined, and their antioxidant capacities were quantified. Additionally, the minimum concentrations of hemolysis were determined using human blood erythrocytes. For the extracts' growth inhibitory capacity, six bacterial and two fungal strains were evaluated using the disk diffusion test. Commercial medications specific for each strain were used as controls. The ethanolic extracts registered the greatest diversity of metabolites related to antibacterial activity. The inhibitory activities of the ethanolic extract and the Cedax® control were similar for Enterococcus faecalis. A principal component analysis was performed with X2 and ANOVA tests to identify the relationships and the effects of the extracts on bacterial inhibition, obtaining p > 0.05 with a confidence level of 95%. This research highlights the potential of L. tridentata extracts as an alternative treatment and to mitigate the growing problem of resistance to traditional antibiotics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying the patterns and properties of biological diversity at multiple geographic scales is essential to answering biogeographical and macroecological questions. Here, we tested the hypothesis that diversity estimates derived from stacked species distribution models (stacked SDMs) would be robust and positively correlated when compared to estimates from well-surveyed areas with species checklists, but potentially more ambiguous when compared to estimates based on species' occurrences. We used these three diversity sources to evaluate alpha and beta diversity, per-site range size, total nestedness and completeness at five geographic scales (1/2°, 1/4°, 1/8°, 1/16°, and 1/32°). Estimates from the species' occurrences dataset and stacked SDMs showed poor positive correlation with alpha diversity in well-surveyed areas (except for stacked SDMs at coarse scales). However, beta diversity in well-surveyed areas exhibited a strong correlation with both the species' occurrence dataset and stacked SDMs at finer scales. The nestedness pattern from stacked SDMs remained relatively constant across all geographic scales; in contrast, nestedness in occurrence datasets was influenced by finer scales, thereby affecting community traits such as incidence and composition of species. Our study demonstrates that stacked SDMs was reliable for inferring effective diversities across multiple geographic scales, whereas occurrence datasets are not and may fail to accurately infer diversity patterns. Even well-surveyed areas with species checklists showed low completeness, sharing similarities with occurrence datasets at 1/4° and 1/16°. We recommend conducting complementary analysis of completeness properties of sample coverage to ensure the reliability of diversity assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Agrociencia is the property of Colegio de Postgraduados and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)