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Recent studies have shown that green synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) and their application in the control of phytopathogenic fungi is a burgeoning field. Sisymbrium irio (Si) (London rocket) is a well-known weed that grows abundantly in Saudi Arabia from February to May. The present study is concerned with the rapid synthesis of silver nanoparticles from the aqueous seed extract of Si) in the presence of sunlight. The biosynthesized Si-AgNPs were characterized using UV-Visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) microanalysis, dynamic light scattering analysis (DLS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy analysis (FTIR). The UV-Vis spectrum revealed a prominent surface plasmon resonance (SPR) absorption band (∼439 nm) characteristic of AgNPs. As revealed by TEM analysis, the Si-AgNPs were predominantly spheroidal in shape and measured between 4 and 51 nm, while the Z average of nanoparticles was 94.81 nm as revealed by the DLS spectrum. The FTIR spectrum displayed peaks related to important functional groups (amines, phenols, carboxylic acids, flavonoids, aromatic compounds, and esters) that aid in the reduction, encapsulation, and stability of AgNPs. The Si-AgNPs were further investigated against a panel of potent fungal phytopathogens that included Alternaria alternata, A. brassicae, Fusarium solani, F. oxysporum, and Trichoderma harzianum. The cytotoxic activity of the biosynthesized nanoparticles against human cervical cancer cell lines (HeLa) was also tested. Si-AgNPs at 80 µg·mL−1 demonstrated a marked reduction in mycelial growth and spore germination. Similarly, Si-AgNPs exhibited dose-dependent cytotoxic activity against the HeLa cell line, with an IC50 value of 21.83 ± 0.76 µg·mL−1. The results of the present study demonstrate the robust cytotoxic and antifungal activities of Si-AgNPs. Based on the findings, Si-AgNPs can be exploited to design formulations that can effectively act as anticancer agents, controlling the proliferation of cancer cells while also combating fungal phytopathogens. However, future research to understand their toxicity mechanisms is needed.

Recognizing, assessing, and responding to threats is critical for survival in the wild. Birds, especially in their role as parents, must decide whether to flee or delay flight when threatened. This study examines how age, reproductive stage, and the presence of a mate influence flight initiation distance (FID) and nest recess duration in white storks. Analyzing the data with a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM), we found significant correlations between FID and age, reproductive stage, and presence of a mate. These results suggest that the trade-off between current and future reproduction shifts during critical breeding periods, such as incubation and nestling care. To increase breeding success, White Storks appear willing to take risks and extend their stay in the nest when offspring are most valuable and vulnerable. In the presence of a mate, individuals leave the nest earlier, suggesting possible sexual conflict over parental care. The duration of nest abandonment is consistent with FID, except for age. These results illustrate how parental age, brood value, vulnerability, and sexual dynamics influence white stork flight decisions in complex ways. Understanding these dynamics enriches our knowledge of bird behavior and adaptations to environmental challenges and highlights the complexity of parental decision making.

Recently, environment pollution around the globe has increased because of anthropogenic activities. As part of the biota, plants can assimilate the compounds present in air, water and soil and respond to changes in surround conditions, for that, they can be used as bioindicators of global pollution. However, urban plants' ability to monitor organic pollutants in air, soil, and water have not been profoundly studied yet. Anthropogenic contamination produced by five different types of pollutants [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs), pesticides and organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs)] has been studied in Riyadh and Abha areas (Saudi Arabia). In addition to the points in both cities, a control point located in the Asir National Park (close to Abha), which is little affected by human activity, was used. The 5 groups of contaminants were found with different but high detection frequencies from 85 % to 100 % in wild and ruderal plants. PAHs were detected in all the analyzed samples at the highest average sum of concentrations (ΣPAHs) 1486 ng·g -1 dry weight (d.w.). Statistically significant differences were obtained between Riyadh, Abha and the point located in the national park (p < 0.05). ΣPAHS in Riyadh >> ΣPAHs in Abha > ΣPAHs in the National Park. Values of the average sum of concentrations for the other groups of contaminants ΣPPCPs, ΣPFASs, Σpesticides and ΣOPFRs were 420.5, 171, 48 and 47 ng g -1 d.w., respectively. High values of PPCPs are due to the presence of salicylic acid. Differences in the average sum of each type of contaminant concentrations between cities were not statistically significant. The results of this assessment of wild and ruderal plants as bioindicators for 5 types of organic contaminants suggest that they can be used to monitor anthropogenic contaminants in the terrestrial environment., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Microplastics (MPs) are in all environmental compartments, including atmosphere, terrestrial, and aquatic environments as well as in marine organisms, foods, drinking water, and indoor and outdoor environments. MPs can enter the human body through the food chain and contaminated environment. Ingestion, inhalation, and dermal contact are the routes of their entry into the human body. Recent studies reporting the detection of MPs within the human body have raised concern among the scientific community as the knowledge about human exposure is still very limited and their impact on health is not well-understood yet. In this review article, we briefly cover the reports evidencing MP detection within the human body, e.g., stool, placenta, lungs, liver, sputum, breast milk, and blood. A concise synopsis of sample preparation and analysis of such human matrices is also provided. This article also presents a summary of the effect of MPs on human cell lines and human health., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The horse is central to many Indigenous cultures across the American Southwest and the Great Plains. However, when and how horses were first integrated into Indigenous lifeways remain contentious, with extant models derived largely from colonial records. We conducted an interdisciplinary study of an assemblage of historic archaeological horse remains, integrating genomic, isotopic, radiocarbon, and paleopathological evidence. Archaeological and modern North American horses show strong Iberian genetic affinities, with later influx from British sources, but no Viking proximity. Horses rapidly spread from the south into the northern Rockies and central plains by the first half of the 17th century CE, likely through Indigenous exchange networks. They were deeply integrated into Indigenous societies before the arrival of 18th-century European observers, as reflected in herd management, ceremonial practices, and culture.

Predictive models were generated to evaluate the degree to which nine metals (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn) were absorbed by the leaves, stems and roots of forage sorghum in growing media comprising soil admixed with poultry manure concentrations of 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 g/kg. The data revealed that the greatest contents of the majority of the metals were evident in the roots rather than in the stems and leaves. A bioaccumulation factor (BAF) < 1 was calculated for Cr, Fe, Ni, Pb and Zn; BAF values for Co, Cu, Mn and Cd were 3.99, 2.33, 1.44 and 1.40, respectively, i.e., > 1. Translocation factor values were < 1 for all metals with the exception of Co, Cr and Ni, which displayed values of 1.20, 1.67 and 1.35 for the leaves, and 1.12, 1.23 and 1.24, respectively, for the stems. The soil pH had a negative association with metal tissues in plant parts. A positive relationship was observed with respect to plant metal contents, electrical conductivity and organic matter quantity. The designed models exhibited a high standard of data precision; any variations between the predicted and experimentally observed contents for the nine metals in the three plant tissue components were nonsignificant. Thus, it was concluded that the presented predictive models constitute a pragmatic tool to establish the safety from risk to human well-being with respect to growing forage sorghum when cultivating media fortified with poultry manure., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)

Background: The purpose of the research was to evaluate the content and delivery of the undergraduate endodontic curriculum., Methods: A needs assessment survey was distributed among the Deans of all the dental colleges in Saudi Arabia., Results: The response rate was 72%. All the colleges include foundational and advanced topics in their curriculum. Didactic lectures, clinical cases, self-directed learning assignments and projects, and videos are the most common teaching methods, whereas virtual learning and reading list are the least popular methods. The average staff-to-student ratio for preclinical and clinical training is 1:6 and 1:7, respectively. Eighty-six percent of colleges utilize dedicated endodontic clinics supervised by specialized endodontists. Eighty percent of colleges use simple cases for canal preparation and obturation. Most colleges do not use magnification and ultrasonic instruments. Saline and sodium hypochlorite are preferred irrigation solutions, whereas calcium hydroxide is the preferred inter-visit medicament. Many use MTA as an advanced material, calcium hydroxide as an inter-visit medicament, and provisional restoration after RCT., Conclusion: The content and delivery of the endodontic undergraduate curriculum are primarily uniform. The use of specialist endodontists dedicated endodontic clinics, rotary instruments, and advanced materials have emerged as curricular strengths. However, diversification of teaching strategies, use of magnification instruments, and an increase in the minimum number of endodontically treated teeth are leading areas demanding curricular improvement.

As the direct effects of climate change on the hydrological regime, Saudi Arabia has constructed more than 522 dams of various capacities as part of economic and environmental development. The study aims to assess the impact of dams on plant diversity, vegetation structure and soil in Saudi Arabia. Thirty-five stands were selected from the dams of different sizes of Saudi Arabia. Vegetation samples were established before (upstream) and after (downstream) the dam, and at the undammed (unaffected by the dam) to compare species diversity in the dam sites and undammed sites and to document the potential effects of dams on vegetation structure. A total of 151 plant species belonging to 36 families have been recorded. The vegetation associations are essentially shrubby with widespread annuals. Six novel associations were identified with the application of TWINSPAN, DCA, and CCA programs. They were named after the characteristic species as follows: VG I: Acacia gerrardii-Caralluma retrospiciens; VGII: Acacia tortilis-Maerua oblongifolia; VGIII: Lycium shawii-Farsetia aegyptiaca; VG IV: Farsetia stylosa-Cornulaca monocantha; VG V: Suaeda aegyptiaca-Salsola imbricata - Prosopis farcta and VGVI: Xanthium strumarium-Ochradenus baccatus . These plant communities are evaluated and discussed according to their floristic structure, vegetation diversity and edaphic variables. The riparian or streamside zones upstream and downstream that are periodically flooded contain highly diverse plant communities that are structured by flooding, which creates disturbance and acts as a dispersal mechanism for plants than undammed sites., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Domestication of horses fundamentally transformed long-range mobility and warfare 1 . However, modern domesticated breeds do not descend from the earliest domestic horse lineage associated with archaeological evidence of bridling, milking and corralling 2-4 at Botai, Central Asia around 3500 BC 3 . Other longstanding candidate regions for horse domestication, such as Iberia 5 and Anatolia 6 , have also recently been challenged. Thus, the genetic, geographic and temporal origins of modern domestic horses have remained unknown. Here we pinpoint the Western Eurasian steppes, especially the lower Volga-Don region, as the homeland of modern domestic horses. Furthermore, we map the population changes accompanying domestication from 273 ancient horse genomes. This reveals that modern domestic horses ultimately replaced almost all other local populations as they expanded rapidly across Eurasia from about 2000 BC, synchronously with equestrian material culture, including Sintashta spoke-wheeled chariots. We find that equestrianism involved strong selection for critical locomotor and behavioural adaptations at the GSDMC and ZFPM1 genes. Our results reject the commonly held association 7 between horseback riding and the massive expansion of Yamnaya steppe pastoralists into Europe around 3000 BC 8,9 driving the spread of Indo-European languages 10 . This contrasts with the scenario in Asia where Indo-Iranian languages, chariots and horses spread together, following the early second millennium BC Sintashta culture 11,12 ., (© 2021. The Author(s).)

The principal objective of this study is to generate mathematical regression equations that facilitate the estimation of the extent to which Eichhornia crassipes (C. Mart.) Solms, water hyacinth, absorbs heavy metals (HMs) into four plant organs (laminae, petioles, roots, and stolons). This study considers the absorption of nine HMs (Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni, Pb, and Zn), and the E. crassipes evaluated in this study were located in three irrigation canals in the North Nile Delta in Egypt, with sampling being conducted in both monospecific and homogenous E. crassipes. Samples of both E. crassipes and water were collected on a monthly basis during one growing season. Analysis of the water samples showed that the HM concentrations ranged from 1.1 μg/l for Cd to 2079.8 μg/l for Fe. All HMs were more concentrated in the E. crassipes roots than in any other organ. Typically, there was a significant correlation between the HM levels in the water and the HM levels in the E. crassipes organs. E. crassipes was documented by a bioconcentration factor > 1.0 for all HMs. The translocation factor in this study was <1.0 for all HMs. The t-values that referred to the discrepancies between the measured and predicted values of the HMs in the four E. crassipes organs were not significant. This finding can be considered to be an indication of the goodness of fit with respect to the ability of the equations to forecast HM uptake. Therefore, the developed equations will benefit the prediction of HM uptake by E. crassipes grown in irrigation canals in the Nile Delta. The efficacy of E. crassipes as a metric for gauging the aggregate impact of environmental pollution in water sources and its potential application in biomonitoring are confirmed in this study., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest All of the authors confirm that there are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

In this study, water of the channels and ponds that conduct residual water in two most important cities of Saudi Arabia were assessed to ascertain the influence of the population on the occurrence and pollution characteristics of microplastics (MPs) (> 20 µm in size). Riyadh has 7.6 million inhabitants and is an urban city even though also have industry while Al-Jubail has only 0.78 and is the biggest industrial city. MPs showed an average of 3.2 items/L in Riyadh and 0.2 items/L in Al-Jubail showing a statistically significant difference between both cities. Sampling with a Turton Tow Net of 20 µm mesh, fibers were dominant in all sites (60%). MPs size was mainly distributed between 80 and 250 µm (60%), and their major colors were white (40%), red (25%) and blue (20%). Infrared spectral analysis revealed that most of the selected particles were identified as MPs of polypropylene and polyethylene (48.3%). The risk assessment was carried out using both the hazard index (HI) and the pollution load index (PLI). The results showed that, in this case, the decisive index is the PLI since the main difference in the MPs characteristics between the two cities is their concentration., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Soil salinity is an increasingly global problem which hampers plant growth and crop yield. Plant productivity depends on optimal water-use efficiency and photosynthetic capacity balanced by stomatal conductance. Whether and how stomatal behavior contributes to salt sensitivity or tolerance is currently unknown. This work identifies guard cell-specific signaling networks exerted by a salt-sensitive and salt-tolerant plant under ionic and osmotic stress conditions accompanied by increasing NaCl loads. We challenged soil-grown Arabidopsis thaliana and Thellungiella salsuginea plants with short- and long-term salinity stress and monitored genome-wide gene expression and signals of guard cells that determine their function. Arabidopsis plants suffered from both salt regimes and showed reduced stomatal conductance while Thellungiella displayed no obvious stress symptoms. The salt-dependent gene expression changes of guard cells supported the ability of the halophyte to maintain high potassium to sodium ratios and to attenuate the abscisic acid (ABA) signaling pathway which the glycophyte kept activated despite fading ABA concentrations. Our study shows that salinity stress and even the different tolerances are manifested on a single cell level. Halophytic guard cells are less sensitive than glycophytic guard cells, providing opportunities to manipulate stomatal behavior and improve plant productivity., (© 2021 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2021 New Phytologist Foundation.)

In this study, the occurrence of 12 organophosphorus flame retardants (OPFRs), 64 pesticides, 21 perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) and 34 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) in surface water, sediments and vegetation collected from seven locations along the South Riyadh and six locations along the Al-Jubail industrial city (Saudi Arabia) were reported. The median of the concentrations of ƩOPFRs, ƩPesticides, ƩPFASs and ƩPPCPs in water was 297, 231, 29.7 and 3794 ng L -1 , respectively, in sediments 56.2, 40.4, 5.66 and 419 ng g -1 d.w., in crops for human consumption of 45.6, 42.0, 0.46 and 42.0 ng g -1 , in farm crops of 13.4, 57.5, 3.2 and 637 ng g -1 , and in natural vegetation of 51.7, 10.3, 1.88 and 1580 ng g -1 . Predominant compounds in all matrices were tris-(1,3-dichloro-2-propyl)phosphate (TClPP), acetamiprid, imidacloprid, caffeine, bisphenol A (BPA), diclofenac and ibuprofen. Tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate (TBEP), tris-(2-ethylhexyl)phosphate (TPhP), perfluoroctanoic acid (PFOA), perfluoroalkyl sulfonate (PFOS) and paracetamol were also in many samples but at low concentrations. The contaminants' levels showed similar values in both cities. However, pesticide levels were significantly higher in surface water (p < 0.05) and lower in natural vegetation (p < 0.05) of Riyadh than those of Al-Jubail. The risk assessment for the aquatic biota showed that abamectin, diazinon (pesticides), bisphenol A and caffeine (PPCPs) had the highest risk levels. The cumulative risk assessment showed that the contaminant mixture in all water samples is of concern. As far as the risk to human health is concerned, individual contaminants did not show a significant hazard for the population. However, OPFRs and pesticide requires a closed monitoring since % of admissible daily intakes (ADIs) or reference doses (RfD) are high. This is one of the most comprehensive study covering environmental and human risk assessment of emerging contaminants carried out in Saudi Arabia., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Microbial degradation as a treatment, with the combination of mixed inoculants of the Biofertilizer of Pseudomonas sp. , Azo spi rillium sp. and Rhizobium sp. , was employed for the remediation of Silk dyeing effluent. Remediating studies was undertaken to assess the feasibility of the mixed biofertilizer inoculant source for degradation of the Azodye effluent from the Silk dyeing Industry. The Green leafy vegetable (GLV), Amaranthus tristis Linn used as investigational prototypical plant species is selected for examining the phytochemicals, functional groups and its compounds grown in the effluent and biotreated environment and compared. The laboratory scale investigation showed that leaves, stem and root of the Amaranthus tristis Linn was qualitatively analysed for 20 phytochemicals which was grown in the different treatments of raw effluent and the biotreated effluent and the results showed the phytochemicals on the effluent's influence reduced from strong positive to trace amounts while recovered on the biotreated environment. The FTIR analysis of the GLV grown in effluent and biotreated environments on comparison resulted in the functional group Alkene rescued in the biotreated effluent environment compared to the effluent contaminated area. The HPLC analysis of methanolic extracts of A. tristis grown in fresh water has 6 peaks of retention time of 2.6, 3, 3.9, 4, 4.2, and 4.6 RT whereas GLV effluent had only one peak of retention time of 4.1 RT. In the GLV from biotreated environment have 4 peaks were found with the maximum percentage area of 95.2% which proves that the compounds are rescued in the biotreated environment and few active compounds were confirmed in GCMS analysis. The Soil analysis results also indicate that the biotreatment of mixed inoculant of biofertilizers in the biotreated soil had influence resulting in improved levels of Ca, N, P and K with 114, 213, 10.5, 268 kg/ha respectively in the mixed inoculant biotreated soil. Similarly the micronutrients suchas Fe, Mn, Cu and Zn ranges to 4.1, 20.22, 2.13, 1.13 ppm respectively in the mixed inoculant biotreated soil within the optimal range. The study revealed that mixed biofertilizer inoculant has the recovery effect on the Silk dyeing (Azodyes) effluents effective reducing the pollutant capacity thereby meeting the discharged standards., Competing Interests: The authors declare that there are no potential conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper., (© 2020 The Author(s).)

The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, identified as SARS-CoV-2, initially established in Wuhan, China at the end of 2019, affects respiratory infections known as COVID-19. In an extraordinary manner, COVID-19 is affecting human life and has transformed a global public health issue into a crisis. Natural products are already recognized owing to the massive advantageous window and efficient antioxidant, antiviral immunomodulatory, and anti-inflammatory belongings. Additionally, the object of the present study was to demonstrate the inhibitory potential of the natural products coumarins and its analogues alongside SARS coronavirus. The present work, focuses on the synthesis of new coumarin analogues and characterized by FT-IR, 1 H and 13 C NMR, elemental analyses, and mass spectra. The recently synthesised compounds were projected conceptual association for COVID-19 protease and also to explore in anticipation if this protein will help target protease inhibitor drugs such as Calanolide A , Cardatolide A , Collinin , Inophyllum A , Mesuol , Isomesuol , Pteryxin , Rutamarin , Seselin and Suksdorin . The natural coumarin analogues docking scores were compared to standard Hydroxychloroquine. While the 3D module of SARS coronavirus main protease was predicted with the SWISS MODEL web server, as well as biochemical interaction tests were performed with the AutoDock Vina tool between the target protein with ligands. This research further showed that all the protease inhibitors accessed the target protein with negative dock energy. Molecular docking studies found that the natural coumarin analogue Inophyllum A showed an exceptional potential for inhibition with a binding energy of -8.4 kcal/mol. The synthetic coumarin analogues 1m and 1p both demonstrated a similar binding energy, inhibition potential of -7.9 kcal / mol as opposed to hydroxychloroquine and co-crystallized ligand alpha-ketoamide with binding energy values of -5.8 and -6.6 kcal / mol. All compounds evaluated were known as drug-like in nature, passing Lipinski's "Law of 5" with 0 violations except for alpha-ketoamide, passing Lipinski's "Rule of 5" with 1 violation (MW > 500). The inhibitor binding in silico research thus offers a structural understanding of COVID-19 and molecular interactions across the known protease inhibitors centred on the findings of the multiple sequence alliance., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2020 The Authors.)

Food producing animals harbouring bacteria carrying drug resistance genes especially the metallo-beta-lactamase (MBL) pose high risk for the human population. In addition, formation of biofilm by these drug resistant pathogens represents major threat to food safety and public health. In this study, metallo-β-lactamases (MβLs) producing Pseudomonas spp. from camel meat were isolated and assessed for their biofilm formation. Further, in vitro and in silico studies were performed to study the effect of flavone naringin on biofilm formation against isolated Pseudomonas spp. A total of 55% isolates were found to produce metallo-β-lactamase enzyme. Naringin mitigated biofilm formation of Pseudomonas isolates up to 57%. Disturbed biofilm architecture and reduced the colonization of bacteria on glass was observed under scanning electron microscope (SEM) and confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM). The biofilm related traits such as exopolysaccharides (EPS) and alginate production was also reduced remarkably in the presence of naringin. Eradication of preformed biofilms (32-60%) was also observed at the respective 0.50 × MICs. Molecular docking revealed that naringin showed strong affinity towards docked proteins with binding energy ranging from -8.6 to -8.8 kcal mol -1 . Presence of metallo-β-lactamase producers indicates that camel meat could be possible reservoir of drug-resistant Pseudomonas species of clinical importance. Naringin was successful in inhibiting biofilm formation as well as eradicating the preformed biofilms and demonstrated strong binding affinity towards biofilm associated protein. Thus, it is envisaged that naringin could be exploited as food preservative especially against the biofilm forming food-borne Pseudomonas species and is a promising prospect for the treatment of biofilm based infections., Competing Interests: The authors declare no conflict of interest., (© 2020 The Author(s).)

Extracts of different medicinal plants had been used to control several diseases in both traditional medicine and modern drugs. In the current study, we aimed to examine the changes in chemical composition of Zilla spinosa Forssk. plants collected from different habitats in Saudi Arabia in response to spatial and seasonal variations. Z . spinosa samples were collected from two different sites in Riyadh and Eastern regions in Saudi Arabia to examine the spatial variations effects on the studied parameters. Samples were collected from both sites at two different times (3:00 PM and 3:00 AM) to examine the effect of light on the chemical content and composition of these plants. Samples was, also, collected from the same sites at two different seasons (on start of January 2018 "winter season" and end of May 2018 "summer season") to examine the effect of temperature changes (seasonal variations) on the chemical content and composition of the different studied plants. In Z . spinosa plants collected from Riyadh region, squalene was found to be the major constitute of 3 samples; however, surprisingly, the sample collected in Winter at 3:00 AM showed the presence of mome inositol and ( Z )-5-(formylmethylene)-4-methoxy-2(5 h)-furanone as the dominant components. Similarly, chemical compositions of essential oils extracted from Z . spinosa samples collected from Eastern region in the Summer season was dominated by squalene. Z . spinosa plants showed that all collected samples had high carbohydrate and protein contents with very low content of fats., Competing Interests: The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest., (© 2020 Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University.)

The data set presents the occurrence of 59 currently used pesticides (CUPs) and 33 pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), from wetland areas, in Saudi Arabia, impacted by wastewater discharge. Wetlands are valuable ecosystems, but are very fragile and easily affected by anthropogenic pressure [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. The occurrence of organic contaminants provides understanding about their fate and possible risk for humans and environment. Up to our knowledge, this is the first report on the occurrence of the mentioned organic pollutants in shallow lakes in Saudi Arabia, and the first time these compounds are analyzed in wild flora. Samples of water, sediment, soil and plants were extracted via ultrasound assisted extraction (UAE) and solid phase extraction (SPE). The compounds determination was performed using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS). Interpretation and discussion of the present dataset can be found in the article entitled " Pharmaceuticals, pesticides, personal care products and microplastics contamination assessment of Al-Hassa irrigation network (Saudi Arabia) and its shallow lakes" [1]., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships, which have, or could be perceived to have, influenced the work reported in this article., (© 2020 The Author(s).)

The ability of the native emergent macrophytes Typha domingensis for monitoring pollution with trace metals in Egyptian Lake Burullus was investigated through developing regression models for predicting their concentrations in the plant tissues. Plant samples (above-ground shoot and below-ground root and rhizome) as well as sediment samples were collected monthly during one growing season and analyzed. The association of trace metals concentration with several sediment characteristics (pH, organic matter, clay and silt) was also studied using the simple linear correlation coefficient (r). The concentration of some trace metals was significantly proportional to its values in the sediment such as Cd in the shoot, rhizome and root, Fe in the rhizome, and Ag in the root. There was positive relationship between the bioaccumulation factor (BAF) of Ag, Cd, Fe, Pb and Zn and sediment pH, organic matter and clay content. The developed regression models were significantly valid with high model efficiency and coefficient of determination, and low mean normalized average error. Trace metals were accumulated in the below-ground root and rhizome rather than in the shoot. Only Ag, Co and Ni provided bioaccumulation factor (BAF) < 1, while Ag was the only trace metal that could be transferred to some extend from the root to the rhizome and from there to the shoot [translocation factor (TF) 2.55 and 1.15, respectively]. Typha domingensis in Lake Burullus could be regarded as a bioindicator of trace metals pollution, and a good candidate as phytoremediator for Ag. The information on the phytoremediation capacity of T. domingensis certainly helps to solve contamination problems at Egyptian Lake Burullus region using this native plant., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The phenomenal increase in the demand of herbal drugs, leads to over exploitation of medicinal plants which ultimately resulted in the scarcity and endangerment of many valuable plant species. On observing the difficulties in procuring genuine herbal drugs arose the concept of substitution which was documented in many classical Ayurvedic texts. The present study made a comparative evaluation of the gastroprotective potential of hydroalcoholic extracts of an original drug Aconitum heterophyllum (HAAH) and its substitute Cyperus rotundus (HACR) in the treatment of gastric ulcer under in vivo experimental conditions. The anti-ulcer property of the plant extracts was investigated against pylorus ligation induced ulcer in Wistar albino rats. The results confirmed that both A. heterophyllum and C. rotundus deliver comparable significant protection against gastric ulcer, indicated by a decrease in the free and total acidity, volume of gastric content, total proteins and increase in pH of gastric content, total carbohydrates and total carbohydrates to total proteins ratio. The observed anti-ulcer potential of both the drugs is attributed mainly to prevention of the generation of damaging free radical cascades and oxidant radical release., (© 2019 The Authors.)

Pedalium murex L. is a medicinal herb that has been used for the treatment of diseases related to kidney in the traditional system of medicine. The current study aims to study the effect of ethyl acetate extract of P. murex (EAEP) and its fractionated compound pedalitin against urease production and UreC gene expression in Proteus mirabilis . The selected reference strain Proteus mirabilis (MTCC 425) and the isolates culture of Proteus mirabilis were subjected to study the antibacterial efficacy of P. murex . Expression analysis of P. mirabilis urease gene was successfully done by QPCR. The ethyl acetate extract effectively inhibit the reference Proteus mirabilis and bacterial isolates of Proteus mirabilis in the clinical samples studied . EAEP has showed more potent activity (56.7%) against urease enzyme and pedalitin also exhibited potent activity (30.1%). Using qPCR, the expression of UreC gene of P. mirabilis was controlled by EAEP and also its bioactive compound pedalitin. The present study clearly demonstrated the potency of P. murex in controlling the growth of pathogenic P. mirabilis and to control the expression of urease enzyme production as well as to restrict the urease gene expression in P. mirabilis ., (© 2020 The Authors.)

This study assess the presence of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) and pesticides in different environmental compartments and microplastics in water of a characteristic lagoon wetland in Saudi Arabia to establish the transport, accumulation and fate of these pollutants in a water-stressed area under high anthropogenic pressure. In water, diazinon (up to 1016 ng L -1 ), caffeine (up to 20,663 ng L -1 ), diclofenac (up to 1390 ng L -1 ) and paracetamol (up to 3069 ng L -1 ) were at the highest concentrations. The substances with the highest frequency of detection were carbendazim, atorvastatin, caffeine, etoricoxib, lorazepam, metformin, ofloxacin, paracetamol, salicylic acid and tramadol. Considerably less pesticides and PPCPs at concentrations ranging from 0.01 to 126 ng g -1 dry weight (d.w.) were detected in the other matrices (sediment ≫ soil > plants). The concentration of microplastics in water ranged from 0.7 to 7.8 items/L in the Al-Asfar lake and from 1.1 to 9.0 items/L in the Al-Hubail lake. Risk assessment [using hazards quotients (HQ)] was used to highlight pesticides and PPCPs of major ecological concern that should be closely monitored to avoid adverse effects., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Plants in arid regions are exposed to various abiotic stresses and the presence of the waxy cuticular layer acts as a defensive barrier, which consists mainly of long chain fatty acids, hydrocarbons and other derived compounds. Studies on the chemical composition and properties of cuticles of arid plants are scanty. The present study deals with the analysis of cuticular wax composition and effect of temperature on some ecophysiological parameters of an important arid plant Ziziphus nummularia . A total of 59 different wax compounds were detected from the leaf cuticle by capillary GC-MS. 4-Hydroxycyclohexanone, Heptacosane and 2,7-Dimethyloctane-3,5-dione were the dominant wax compounds in Z. nummularia . The variation of photosynthetic rate varied from 0.70 to 7.70 µmol CO2 m-2s-1 against the studied temperature range of 15-55 °C. The transpiration rate varies from 1.80 to 8.40 mmol H2O m-2s-1 within the temperature range of 15-55 °C. The quantum yield of photosystem II (Fv/Fm) also exhibited much variation due to the variation of temperature. The results clearly shows that Z. nummularia is highly adapted to restrict water loss and can tolerate high temperatures and can be considered as an appropriate species for vegetating the arid areas., (© 2019 The Author(s).)

The conservation of coastal ecosystems and specially mangroves ''blue carbon'' is receiving more attention as consequence of their recognition as high ecosystem carbon stocks and for the fact that these areas are undergoing land conversion. The aim of the present study is to evaluate the impact of land use changes due to conversion of mangroves to shrimp farms on the bulk density (SBD), organic carbon (SOC) concentration, and SOC stock in the sediments along the southern Saudi Arabian Red Sea coast. Shrimp farms and mangrove locations showed significant (P < 0.001) differences in SBD with high mean values in the sediments of shrimp farms. Shrimp farms and mangrove locations showed significant (P < 0.001) SOC concentration differences with high mean values in the sediments of mangroves. Considering the whole depth of sediment interval (0-100 cm), the highest value of SOC stock was recorded at mangroves (29.2 kg C m -2 ) and the lowest was identified at the locations of shrimp farms (19.9 kg C m -2 ). The results show that SOC stock of mangroves is 147% higher than that of shrimp farms confirming the fact that anthropogenic factors contributed significantly to SOC stock decrease. The mean cumulative potential carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emission due to loss soil carbon stock from mangrove conversion to the shrimp ponds was 34.9 kg CO 2 m -2 . In conclusion, the conversion of mangroves into shrimp farms contributed to the loss of SOC stock, therefore, the preservation of mangrove areas has an important value especially in arid areas such as Saudi Arabia., (Copyright © 2019 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Horse domestication revolutionized warfare and accelerated travel, trade, and the geographic expansion of languages. Here, we present the largest DNA time series for a non-human organism to date, including genome-scale data from 149 ancient animals and 129 ancient genomes (≥1-fold coverage), 87 of which are new. This extensive dataset allows us to assess the modern legacy of past equestrian civilizations. We find that two extinct horse lineages existed during early domestication, one at the far western (Iberia) and the other at the far eastern range (Siberia) of Eurasia. None of these contributed significantly to modern diversity. We show that the influence of Persian-related horse lineages increased following the Islamic conquests in Europe and Asia. Multiple alleles associated with elite-racing, including at the MSTN "speed gene," only rose in popularity within the last millennium. Finally, the development of modern breeding impacted genetic diversity more dramatically than the previous millennia of human management., (Copyright © 2019 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

In arid and semi-arid areas the use of treated wastewater for crop irrigation and other agricultural practices, such as the use of pesticides, increase the number of emerging contaminants (ECs) in crops. Hazards of these practices to human being are largely unknown since there are few studies yet covering a short range of compounds and most of them under non-realistic conditions. This study aims at assessing this problem that will become global soon in an area of Saudi Arabia heavily affected by the reuse of treated wastewater and pesticide in order to ascertain its scale. The novelty of the study relays in the large number of ECs covered and the variety of crops (cabbage, barley, green beans, eggplants, chili, tomato and zucchini) analysed. Extraction procedure developed provided an appropriate extraction yield (up to 50% of the compounds were recovered within a 70-120% range), with good repeatability (relative standard deviations below 20% in most cases) and sensitivity (LOQ < 25 ng g -1 ) for the model compounds. Determination by liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight (LC-QqTOF-MS) is able to identify >2000 contaminants. Sixty-four ECs were identified in wastewater but of the sixty-four compounds, six pharmaceuticals (atenolol, caffeine, carbamazepine and its metabolites 10,11-epoxycarbamazepine, gemfibrozil, and naproxen) and seven pesticides (acetamiprid, atrazine deethyl, azoxystrobin, bupirimate, diazinon, malathion, pirimicarb and some of their metabolites) were detected in plants. Furhermore, one metabolite of the ibuprofen (not detected in water or soil), the ibuprofen hexoside was also found in plants. Up to our knowledge, this study demonstrate for the first time the accumulation of ECs in crops irrigated with treated wastewater under real non-controlled environmental conditions., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Prunus arabica (Oliv.) Meikle is an endangered shrub with a restricted distribution, which inhabits banks of flood flow channels in small sites of ancient volcanic activity dominated by black basaltic boulders within the Harrat Al-Harrah protectorate, Northern Saudi Arabia. It is with limited information about its ecology and hence, the present study is focusing on its phytosociological behavior and ecological features. The multi-methodological approach comprised species description, vegetation sampling and soil composition of 9 study sites at Harrat Al-Harrah protectorate. The application of TWINSPAN, DCA and CCA multivariate analyses led to identify 3 vegetation groups (VGI: Pulicaria undulata - Prunus arabica, VGII: Prunus arabica-Artemisia seiberi , VGIII: Artemisia seiberi-Achillea fragrantissima ) associated with the distribution of P. arabica . The environmental variables that affect P. arabica and its main ecological features had been estimated and discussed. The present study concludes that the main reasons for its threatened and endangerment are seemingly due to overgrazing, poor rainfall, drought, shifting and destruction of its suitable habitat area.

The Eneolithic Botai culture of the Central Asian steppes provides the earliest archaeological evidence for horse husbandry, ~5500 years ago, but the exact nature of early horse domestication remains controversial. We generated 42 ancient-horse genomes, including 20 from Botai. Compared to 46 published ancient- and modern-horse genomes, our data indicate that Przewalski's horses are the feral descendants of horses herded at Botai and not truly wild horses. All domestic horses dated from ~4000 years ago to present only show ~2.7% of Botai-related ancestry. This indicates that a massive genomic turnover underpins the expansion of the horse stock that gave rise to modern domesticates, which coincides with large-scale human population expansions during the Early Bronze Age., (Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works.)

The occurrence of pesticide residues in fruits was determined by a target method for 62 analytes and a wide scope screening method against a database of 500 pesticides. Limits of quantification (LOQs) were from 0.5 to 6.3 μg kg -1 for the target method and from 0.5 to 119 μg kg -1 for the non-target. Thirty samples: dates, apples, oranges, tangerines, lemons and grapefruits were selected because their high consumption, except lemons and grapefruits that were to cover all citrus fruits. Using the target method, 15 compounds (mostly insecticides and fungicides) out of 62 pesticides (organophosphorus, carbamates, pyrethroids, chloroacetanilides, triazines, triazoles, imidazoles, etc.) were detected. Residues were in 100% of the samples, 80% contained at or below maximum residue limits (MRLs), and 20% above. Non-target method identified several additional pesticides (cypronil, fludioxonil, boscalid and pyraclostrobin in apples). The highest acute risk were for acrinathrin, chlorpyrifos and imazalil with estimated short-term intake (ESTI) > 100% acute reference dose (ARfD), followed by imidacloprid and thiabendazole with ESTI ≥ 70% ARfD. The higher chronic risk were for ethion and fluvalinate with estimated daily intakes (EDIs) of 8.8 and 1.5% of the admissible daily intake (ADI), respectively., (Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Date palm Phoenix dactylifera is a desert crop well adapted to survive and produce fruits under extreme drought and heat. How are palms under such harsh environmental conditions able to limit transpirational water loss? Here, we analysed the cuticular waxes, stomata structure and function, and molecular biology of guard cells from P. dactylifera. To understand the stomatal response to the water stress phytohormone of the desert plant, we cloned the major elements necessary for guard cell fast abscisic acid (ABA) signalling and reconstituted this ABA signalosome in Xenopus oocytes. The PhoenixSLAC1-type anion channel is regulated by ABA kinase PdOST1. Energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDXA) demonstrated that date palm guard cells release chloride during stomatal closure. However, in Cl - medium, PdOST1 did not activate the desert plant anion channel PdSLAC1 per se. Only when nitrate was present at the extracellular face of the anion channel did the OST1-gated PdSLAC1 open, thus enabling chloride release. In the presence of nitrate, ABA enhanced and accelerated stomatal closure. Our findings indicate that, in date palm, the guard cell osmotic motor driving stomatal closure uses nitrate as the signal to open the major anion channel SLAC1. This initiates guard cell depolarization and the release of anions together with potassium., (© 2017 The Authors. New Phytologist © 2017 New Phytologist Trust.)

Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) is a major killer disease throughout the world. Dyslipidemia is a major contributor to the risk of CAD. Several dietary articles traditionally used in India and other South Asian countries reduced dyslipidemia. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the combined effect of Mung bean ( Vigna radiata ) and Elephant foot yam ( Amorphophallus paeoniifolius ) on serum lipids and atherogenic indices in albino rats and to compare it with a standard drug Cholestyramine. Thirty healthy albino rats of both sexes (150-200 g) were randomized to 5 groups of 6 animals each. The grouping were done based on the following criteria: Group I: Normal Control Group, Group II: (Standard Group): Cholestyramine resin 5 mg/kg bw, Group III: (Half Dose Group): Drug powder at 540 mg/kg bw, Group IV: (Effective Dose Group): Drug powder at 1080 mg/kg bw, and Group V: (Double Dose Group): Drug powder at 2160 mg/kg bw. Lipid profile was estimated at the beginning and after 30 days of treatment. The Effective and Double doses of the drug reduced Total cholesterol along with levels of Triglycerides, Low density lipoprotein and Very low density lipoprotein levels significantly (p < 0.01) along with a significant (p < 0.01) increase in high density lipoproteins (HDL) in rats. There was also significant (p < 0.01) improvement in atherogenic indices like Castelli Risk Index I, Non HDL C/HDL, Castelli risk Index II, TG/HDL, Atherogenic coefficient and Atherogenic Index of Plasma. The combination of powdered sprouted mung bean and yam powder have excellent lipid lowering potential.

Search for medicinal plants to treat kidney disorders is an important topic on phytotherapeutical research. Plumbago zeylanica L. is an important medicinal plant with hepatoprotective, anti-inflammatory, anti-diabetic, anti-cancer and anti-hyperlipidemic activities. In the present study, the protective effect of hydroalcoholic extract of P. zeylanica (HAPZ) in cisplatin induced nephrotoxicity was analyzed in Swiss albino mice. Treatment with higher dose (400 mg/kg) of HAPZ significantly reversed the adverse effect of cisplatin on kidney weight, serum urea and creatinine, indicating their renoprotective effect. The antioxidant effect of the drug is evident from its significant effect on Catalase, Glutathione peroxidase and lipid peroxidation activities.

High-throughput sequencing has dramatically fostered ancient DNA research in recent years. Shotgun sequencing, however, does not necessarily appear as the best-suited approach due to the extensive contamination of samples with exogenous environmental microbial DNA. DNA capture-enrichment methods represent cost-effective alternatives that increase the sequencing focus on the endogenous fraction, whether it is from mitochondrial or nuclear genomes, or parts thereof. Here, we explored experimental parameters that could impact the efficacy of MYbaits in-solution capture assays of ~5000 nuclear loci or the whole genome. We found that varying quantities of the starting probes had only moderate effect on capture outcomes. Starting DNA, probe tiling, the hybridization temperature and the proportion of endogenous DNA all affected the assay, however. Additionally, probe features such as their GC content, number of CpG dinucleotides, sequence complexity and entropy and self-annealing properties need to be carefully addressed during the design stage of the capture assay. The experimental conditions and probe molecular features identified in this study will improve the recovery of genetic information extracted from degraded and ancient remains., (© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The genomic changes underlying both early and late stages of horse domestication remain largely unknown. We examined the genomes of 14 early domestic horses from the Bronze and Iron Ages, dating to between ~4.1 and 2.3 thousand years before present. We find early domestication selection patterns supporting the neural crest hypothesis, which provides a unified developmental origin for common domestic traits. Within the past 2.3 thousand years, horses lost genetic diversity and archaic DNA tracts introgressed from a now-extinct lineage. They accumulated deleterious mutations later than expected under the cost-of-domestication hypothesis, probably because of breeding from limited numbers of stallions. We also reveal that Iron Age Scythian steppe nomads implemented breeding strategies involving no detectable inbreeding and selection for coat-color variation and robust forelimbs., (Copyright © 2017, American Association for the Advancement of Science.)

The wetlands of Saudi Arabia are located in a water-stressed region that is highly vulnerable to climate and other global changes. Sebkhas, mudflats, mangroves, and wadis are the dominant wetlands in the arid regions of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. These unique wetlands are recognized as a sanctuary for biodiversity and for their economic services generated from mineral extraction, agriculture, and grazing. Despite their ecological values and societal services, the long-term permanence of Saudi Arabia's wetlands faces strong challenges resulting from human activities associated with sustained population growth, habitat degradation, and coastal development. This paper consolidates a literature review of Saudi Arabia's wetlands from local to global importance, highlights their biodiversity, and identifies threats and evolution of these vulnerable ecosystems in the arid Arabian Peninsula by focusing on the status of key freshwater taxa (Odonata, freshwater fishes, amphibians, and waterbirds) and documenting changes affecting important wetlands.

During the last decade many electronic databases of vegetation plots were established in many countries around the world. These databases contain valuable phytosociological information assisting both governmental and NGO (Non-governmental organizations) agencies to formulate strategies and on-ground plans to manage and protect nature resources. This paper provides an account on aims, current status and perspectives of building of a vegetation database for the Central Region (Najd) of Saudi Arabia - the founding element of the Saudi Vegetation Database (SVD). The data stored by the database are sample plots (vegetation relevés) collected according to the field techniques of the Braun-Blanquet approach (lists of taxa accompanied by semi-quantitative cover assessment), and are accompanied by general vegetation characteristics such as vegetation layering and cover, information on life-form of the recorded species, geographical coordinates, altitude, soil typology, topography and many more. More than 2900 vegetation-plot records (relevés) have so far been collected in the Najd region; of these more than 2000 have already been stored using the Turboveg database platform. These field records cover many habitats such as depressions, wadis (dry river beds), agricultural lands, sand dunes, sabkhas, and ruderal habitats. The ecological information collected in the database is currently the largest set of vegetation data collated into a database in the Middle East. These data are of great importance for biodiversity studies in Saudi Arabia, since the region is recording a loss of biodiversity at a fast rate due to environmental problems such as global warming and land-use changes. We envisage that this database would catalyze further data collection on vegetation of the entire Arabian Peninsula, and shall serve as one of the most important datasets for classification and mapping of the vegetation of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Ever since its emergence in 1984, the field of ancient DNA has struggled to overcome the challenges related to the decay of DNA molecules in the fossil record. With the recent development of high-throughput DNA sequencing technologies and molecular techniques tailored to ultra-damaged templates, it has now come of age, merging together approaches in phylogenomics, population genomics, epigenomics, and metagenomics. Leveraging on complete temporal sample series, ancient DNA provides direct access to the most important dimension in evolution—time, allowing a wealth of fundamental evolutionary processes to be addressed at unprecedented resolution. This review taps into the most recent findings in ancient DNA research to present analyses of ancient genomic and metagenomic data.

The horse was domesticated only 5.5 KYA, thousands of years after dogs, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. The horse nonetheless represents the domestic animal that most impacted human history; providing us with rapid transportation, which has considerably changed the speed and magnitude of the circulation of goods and people, as well as their cultures and diseases. By revolutionizing warfare and agriculture, horses also deeply influenced the politico-economic trajectory of human societies. Reciprocally, human activities have circled back on the recent evolution of the horse, by creating hundreds of domestic breeds through selective programs, while leading all wild populations to near extinction. Despite being tightly associated with humans, several aspects in the evolution of the domestic horse remain controversial. Here, we review recent advances in comparative genomics and paleogenomics that helped advance our understanding of the genetic foundation of domestic horses., (Copyright © 2016 by the Genetics Society of America.)

Mistletoes are hemiparasitic plants growing on aerial parts of other host trees. Many of the mistletoes are reported to be medicinally important. The hemiparasitic nature of these plants makes their chemical composition dependent on the host on which it grows. They are shown to exhibit morphological dissimilarities also when growing on different hosts. Helicanthus elastica (Desr.) Danser (mango mistletoe) is one such less explored medicinal mistletoe found on almost every mango tree in India. Traditionally, the leaves of this plant are used for checking abortion and for removing stones in the kidney and urinary bladder while significant antioxidant and antimicrobial properties are also attributed to this species of mistletoe. The current study was undertaken to evaluate molecular differences in the genomic DNA of the plant while growing on five different host trees using four random markers employing random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) followed by similarity matrix by Jaccard's coefficient and distance matrix by hierarchal clustering analysis. Similarity and distance matrix data employing just 4 random markers, separately and the pooled data as well, revealed significant difference in the genomic DNA of H. elastica growing on five different hosts. Pooled data of similarity from all the 4 primers cumulatively showed similarity between 0.256 and 0.311. Distance matrix ranged from of 0.256 to 0.281 on pooling the data from all the four primers. The result employing a minimum number of primers could conclude that genomic DNA of H. elastica differs depending upon the host on which it grows, hence the host must be considered while studying or utilizing this mistletoe for medicinal purposes.

The DNA molecules that can be extracted from archaeological and palaeontological remains are often degraded and massively contaminated with environmental microbial material. This reduces the efficacy of shotgun approaches for sequencing ancient genomes, despite the decreasing sequencing costs of high-throughput sequencing (HTS). Improving the recovery of endogenous molecules from the DNA extraction and purification steps could, thus, help advance the characterization of ancient genomes. Here, we apply the three most commonly used DNA extraction methods to five ancient bone samples spanning a ~30 thousand year temporal range and originating from a diversity of environments, from South America to Alaska. We show that methods based on the purification of DNA fragments using silica columns are more advantageous than in solution methods and increase not only the total amount of DNA molecules retrieved but also the relative importance of endogenous DNA fragments and their molecular diversity. Therefore, these methods provide a cost-effective solution for downstream applications, including DNA sequencing on HTS platforms., (© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

The field of population genetics is rapidly moving into population genomics as the quantity of data generated by high-throughput sequencing platforms increases. In this study, we used restriction-site-associated DNA sequencing (RADSeq) to recover genomewide genotypes from 70 white-beaked (Lagenorhynchus albirostris) and 43 Atlantic white-sided dolphins (L. acutus) gathered throughout their north-east Atlantic distribution range. Both species are at a high risk of being negatively affected by climate change. Here, we provide a resource of 38,240 RAD-tags and 52,981 nuclear SNPs shared between both species. We have estimated overall higher levels of nucleotide diversity in white-sided (π = 0.0492 ± 0.0006%) than in white-beaked dolphins (π = 0.0300 ± 0.0004%). White-sided dolphins sampled in the Faroe Islands, belonging to two pods (N = 7 and N = 11), showed similar levels of diversity (π = 0.0317 ± 0.0007% and 0.0267 ± 0.0006%, respectively) compared to unrelated individuals of the same species sampled elsewhere (e.g. π = 0.0285 ± 0.0007% for 11 Scottish individuals). No evidence of higher levels of kinship within pods can be derived from our analyses. When identifying the most likely number of genetic clusters among our sample set, we obtained an estimate of two to four clusters, corresponding to both species and possibly, two further clusters within each species. A higher diversity and lower population structuring was encountered in white-sided dolphins from the north-east Atlantic, in line with their preference for pelagic waters, as opposed to white-beaked dolphins that have a more patchy distribution, mainly across continental shelves., (© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Yakutia, Sakha Republic, in the Siberian Far East, represents one of the coldest places on Earth, with winter record temperatures dropping below -70 °C. Nevertheless, Yakutian horses survive all year round in the open air due to striking phenotypic adaptations, including compact body conformations, extremely hairy winter coats, and acute seasonal differences in metabolic activities. The evolutionary origins of Yakutian horses and the genetic basis of their adaptations remain, however, contentious. Here, we present the complete genomes of nine present-day Yakutian horses and two ancient specimens dating from the early 19th century and ∼5,200 y ago. By comparing these genomes with the genomes of two Late Pleistocene, 27 domesticated, and three wild Przewalski's horses, we find that contemporary Yakutian horses do not descend from the native horses that populated the region until the mid-Holocene, but were most likely introduced following the migration of the Yakut people a few centuries ago. Thus, they represent one of the fastest cases of adaptation to the extreme temperatures of the Arctic. We find cis-regulatory mutations to have contributed more than nonsynonymous changes to their adaptation, likely due to the comparatively limited standing variation within gene bodies at the time the population was founded. Genes involved in hair development, body size, and metabolic and hormone signaling pathways represent an essential part of the Yakutian horse adaptive genetic toolkit. Finally, we find evidence for convergent evolution with native human populations and woolly mammoths, suggesting that only a few evolutionary strategies are compatible with survival in extremely cold environments.

The recent discovery that DNA methylation survives in fossil material provides an opportunity for novel molecular approaches in palaeogenomics. Here, we apply to ancient DNA extracts the probe-independent Methylated Binding Domains (MBD)-based enrichment method, which targets DNA molecules containing methylated CpGs. Using remains of a Palaeo-Eskimo Saqqaq individual, woolly mammoths, polar bears and two equine species, we confirm that DNA methylation survives in a variety of tissues, environmental contexts and over a large temporal range (4,000 to over 45,000 years before present). MBD enrichment, however, appears principally biased towards the recovery of CpG-rich and long DNA templates and is limited by the fast post-mortem cytosine deamination rates of methylated epialleles. This method, thus, appears only appropriate for the analysis of ancient methylomes from very well preserved samples, where both DNA fragmentation and deamination have been limited. This work represents an essential step toward the characterization of ancient methylation signatures, which will help understanding the role of epigenetic changes in past environmental and cultural transitions.

The domestication of the horse ∼ 5.5 kya and the emergence of mounted riding, chariotry, and cavalry dramatically transformed human civilization. However, the genetics underlying horse domestication are difficult to reconstruct, given the near extinction of wild horses. We therefore sequenced two ancient horse genomes from Taymyr, Russia (at 7.4- and 24.3-fold coverage), both predating the earliest archeological evidence of domestication. We compared these genomes with genomes of domesticated horses and the wild Przewalski's horse and found genetic structure within Eurasia in the Late Pleistocene, with the ancient population contributing significantly to the genetic variation of domesticated breeds. We furthermore identified a conservative set of 125 potential domestication targets using four complementary scans for genes that have undergone positive selection. One group of genes is involved in muscular and limb development, articular junctions, and the cardiac system, and may represent physiological adaptations to human utilization. A second group consists of genes with cognitive functions, including social behavior, learning capabilities, fear response, and agreeableness, which may have been key for taming horses. We also found that domestication is associated with inbreeding and an excess of deleterious mutations. This genetic load is in line with the "cost of domestication" hypothesis also reported for rice, tomatoes, and dogs, and it is generally attributed to the relaxation of purifying selection resulting from the strong demographic bottlenecks accompanying domestication. Our work demonstrates the power of ancient genomes to reconstruct the complex genetic changes that transformed wild animals into their domesticated forms, and the population context in which this process took place.

Horses, asses, and zebras belong to a single genus, Equus, which emerged 4.0-4.5 Mya. Although the equine fossil record represents a textbook example of evolution, the succession of events that gave rise to the diversity of species existing today remains unclear. Here we present six genomes from each living species of asses and zebras. This completes the set of genomes available for all extant species in the genus, which was hitherto represented only by the horse and the domestic donkey. In addition, we used a museum specimen to characterize the genome of the quagga zebra, which was driven to extinction in the early 1900s. We scan the genomes for lineage-specific adaptations and identify 48 genes that have evolved under positive selection and are involved in olfaction, immune response, development, locomotion, and behavior. Our extensive genome dataset reveals a highly dynamic demographic history with synchronous expansions and collapses on different continents during the last 400 ky after major climatic events. We show that the earliest speciation occurred with gene flow in Northern America, and that the ancestor of present-day asses and zebras dispersed into the Old World 2.1-3.4 Mya. Strikingly, we also find evidence for gene flow involving three contemporary equine species despite chromosomal numbers varying from 16 pairs to 31 pairs. These findings challenge the claim that the accumulation of chromosomal rearrangements drive complete reproductive isolation, and promote equids as a fundamental model for understanding the interplay between chromosomal structure, gene flow, and, ultimately, speciation.

Antimicrobial studies on 7 strains of bacteria and 8 strains of fungi using disk diffusion assay, revealed potential activities of crude essential oils in Pogostemon benghalensis, P. purpurascens and P. vestitus. Essential oils produced highest inhibition zones against Staphylococcus aureus (39.33, 37.33 and 35.67 mm for P. benghalensis essential oil) and Candida albicans (34.33, 26.33 and 17.67 mm for P. purpurascens essential oil) among bacteria and fungi respectively, when compared with pure reference standards (35 mm for Gentamycin sulphate (40 mg ml(-1)) against S. aureus and 30.33 mm for Nystatin [50 IU] against C. albicans). Results also indicated the existence of potential antimicrobial activity of Pogostemon essential oils against other microorganisms viz., Proteus vulgaris, E. coli and Aspergillus parasiticus. Leaf essential oils of P. purpurascens and P. benghalensis can be considered as a new source for developing local antifungal and antibacterial agents. An attempt was made to highlight the promising plant species for further investigation which leads to drug development.

Herons and ibis are colonially nesting waders which, owing to their number, mobility and trophic role as top predators, play a key role in aquatic ecosystems. They are also good biological models to investigate interspecific competition between sympatric species and predation; two processes which structure ecological communities. Odonata are also numerous, diverse, mobile and can play an important role in aquatic ecosystems by serving as prey for herons and ibis. A relationship between prey size and bird predator has been observed in Numidia wetlands (NE Algeria) after analyzing food boluses regurgitated by six species of birds (Purple Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron, Glossy Ibis, Little Egret, Squacco Heron and Cattle Egret) during the breeding period, which also shows a temporal gradient for the six species. Both the Levins index and preliminary multivariate analysis of the Odonata as prey fed to nestling herons and ibis, indicated a high degree of resource overlap. However, a distinction of prey based on taxonomy (suborder and family) and developmental stage (larvae or adults) reveals a clear size dichotomy with large-sized predators (Purple Heron, Black-crowned Night Heron and Glossy Ibis) preying on large preys like Aeshnids and Libellulids and small-sized predators feeding mainly on small prey like Zygoptera. Overall, the resource utilization suggests a pattern of resource segregation by coexisting nesting herons and ibis based on the timing of reproduction, prey types, prey size and foraging microhabitats., (Copyright © 2012 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.)

The history of selection of Daphnia magna populations living in North African temporary ponds may differ from populations inhabiting permanent ponds. Laboratory experiments were conducted to examine the effect of fish Gambusia holbrooki and invertebrate Notonecta glauca kairomones on the life history traits of the freshwater Cladocera Daphnia magna Straus. With fish kairomones, Daphnia reproduced early and had a significantly smaller size at first reproduction (SFR) and a smaller size of neonates compared to control. In contrast, daphnids reared in water treated with Notonecta glauca had no effect on the age at first reproduction but females were also smaller and produced smaller neonates., (2010 Académie des sciences. Published by Elsevier SAS. All rights reserved.)