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The rise in illegal crude oil theft and refining in the southern Niger Delta region of Nigeria, especially in Rivers State, has led to significant environmental damage to aquatic ecosystems. A study was carried out to assess the impact of crude oil bunkering on aquatic environments and fish samples from Oproama, Sama-Naguakiri, and Abalama over six months. Findings revealed that Oproama had the highest levels of biological oxygen demand (3.60 ± 0.79 mg/L), electrical conductivity (34.07 ± 3.62 μS/cm), total dissolved solids (28.17 ± 3.77 mg/L), and temperature (29.50 ± 0.74 °C). In contrast, Sama-Naguakiri recorded the highest pH (6.72 ± 0.14) and dissolved oxygen (3.35 ± 0.11 mg/L). Though minor variances were noted between Sama-Naguakiri and Abalama, a significant difference (P

This study evaluated the effects of potato, wheat, rice, and corn starch on growth performance, blood parameters, digestive enzyme activity, antioxidative response, and gut microbiota of African catfish, Clarias gariepinus. A control diet (a commercial fish diet) and four different starch (potato, PO; wheat, WH; corn, CO; rice, RC) formulations were fed to African catfish with average weight of 10.5g (n = 30) for eight weeks. The experiment was conducted in triplicates. At the end of the feeding trial, the growth performance of African catfish fed with potato starch (PO) was significantly higher than other treatment groups. Furthermore, this group recorded significant and lowest feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to other groups. Meanwhile, there were no significant differences in all tested hematological parameters and antioxidative response between the groups. Digestive enzyme activities in the fish intestines, including amylase, lipase, and protease, were significantly higher in African catfish fed with the PO diet. In addition, this group demonstrated substantially lower viscerosomatic index (VSI) and hepatosomatic index (HSI) than other groups, indicating that the fish has more meat on its body. The PO diet group also recorded significantly higher Akkermansia muciniphila, a good gut microbiota. Therefore, the PO diet potentially improves African catfish's growth performance and health status.

Marine and coastal biodiversity is crucial to the planet’s functioning and offers ecosystem services that guarantee the health, wealth, and well-being of the entire humanity. This is why, evaluating the current body of research on coral reefs is essential for understanding the unprecedented growth of this field, which covers many topics including climate change, biotic interactions, bioresources, future bioprospecting, and biodiversity in general. Such an evaluation requires both descriptive summaries and co-citation analyses to understand the expansive nature of this particular research and identify research gaps. Given the importance of the topic and the fact that it is insufficiently addressed, this study fills in a gap regarding coral reefs studies. We analyzed coral reef research published in the Web of Science Core Collection database between 1970 and 2021, using the CiteSpace software. This gave a total of 20,362 records, focusing on variables including the list of contributors (author, affiliation, and country), total publications over time, dual map overlay, co-citation analysis (co-cited author and documents), cluster networks, and popular keywords and their burstness. We found that coral reef publications increased over time, with coastal countries (the USA, Australia, and Japan) being among the highest contributors. Researchers from Australia, New Zealand, and the USA are the top producers of coral reef research worldwide. Unsurprisingly, the journal Coral Reefs was the most productive journal. Interestingly, we found that keywords such as “great barrier reef,” “climate change,” and “predation” were among the top cited and most influential in coral reef science. To our knowledge, this is the first study to identify trends in coral reef research using scientometric analyses based on the CiteSpace software.

Mangrove is a tropical forest that stores millions of benefits ecologically, biologically, and economically. Rhizophora fruit extract contained bioactive compounds components derived from natural ingredients and scientifically proven to have positive effects on health, among others, to prevent cancer, etc. This study aimed to investigate the potential of R. mucronata ethanol extract as an estrogen receptor ß agonist for anti-menopausal purposes. Using a Completely Randomized Design (CRD), 25 mice were divided into five groups: a normal control group (NK), an ovariectomy control group (Ovx), and three ovariectomized groups (Ovx D1, D2, and D3) receiving different doses of the extract (200, 400, and 800 mg.kg-1 BW, respectively). The extract was administered orally, and various measurements were taken, including flavonoid content, using densitometry thin layer chromatography (TLC) and FTIR for functional group characterization. The study found a high rutin content (13.29%) in the fruit. Twelve compounds with potential estrogenic activity were identified, which were analyzed using SwissAdme software. Estradiol levels in serum increased with higher doses of the extract over four weeks. In silico and in vivo analysis showed 5 (five) selected compounds from the ethanol and ethyl acetate fractions with highest (most negative) to lowest binding affinity as candidates for anti-menopausal drugs. The administration of R. mucronata Lam. fruit extract in Ovx D1, Ovx D2 and Ovx D3 gave significantly different effects to each other on rat blood serum estradiol hormone levels. In this study, the dose 400 mg.L-1 BW rat gave P>5 increasing blood serum estradiol levels of ovariectomized rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

African catfish is a popular freshwater aquaculture species as it can be farmed at high stocking density. However, high stocking density caused growth and health impairment. Hence, nutritional approach such as feed additive can be applied in fish farming to overcome this issue. This study evaluated the impacts of ginger (Zingiber officinale) leaf powder (GLP) on growth performance, digestive enzymes activities, antioxidative response, and disease resistance towards Edwardsiella tarda infection in African catfish. A feeding trial was performed using a control diet and four formulated diets with GLP at 1, 2, 3, and 4%. Ginger is an herb used in cuisine and traditional medicine. It was reported possesses medicinal values such as antimicrobial, anti-oxidant, and immune system modulator. After eight weeks, the growth performance of GLP-treated African catfish was significantly improved than control, and the best results were observed in the 2 and 3% groups (p<0.05). Meanwhile, fish supplemented with 1 and 4% GLP demonstrated comparable growth performance. There was a significant decreasing trend in FCR, HSI, and VI, where the lowest values were recorded by the 2 and 3% GLP diet groups, followed by 1% GLP, 4% GLP, and control groups (p<0.05). The digestive enzymes activity, including amylase, lipase, and protease, was significantly higher in dietary GLP groups than in control, where the highest activity was exhibited by groups 2 and 3% GLP (p<0.05), followed by 1% and 4% GLP groups. There was an increasing trend in the antioxidative response, where the GLP-treated groups had significantly higher catalase (CAT), glutathione peroxidase (GPx), and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activities than the control, and the highest was observed in fish fed with 2 and 3% GLP (p<0.05). Furthermore, the GLP-treated groups had a significantly higher cumulative survival rate than the control, where 2 and 3% GLP groups demonstrated the highest survival (p<0.05), followed by 1 and 4% GLP groups. In summary, this study revealed that dietary GLP potentially enhanced African catfish production at recommended doses of 2 and 3%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Biodegradation of livestock processing waste is one of the more cost-effective, ecologically safe recycling methods that may preserve nutritional content and key amino acids useful in animal feed production. Here, we determined the biodegrading potentials of nonconventional feedstuffs using a combination of bacteria (Bacillus subtilis) and fungi (Fusarium sp.). Five nonconventional feed types (feather meal, hair waste, egg membranes, horn hoof and horn) were selected and replicated in a 10 L plastic biocomposter for 7 weeks and observed for degradation by measuring changes in total organic carbon, temperature, phosphorus, potassium, pH, microbial counts and rate of degradation. Bacteria and fungi were inoculated inside the substrate after isolation and incubation. The effects of physicochemical and microbial counts were assessed. The biodegradability and optimal activity were observed. From the results, physico-parameters measured during the 7 weeks showed significant differences (P <0.05) between substrates. The highest rate of decomposition, temperature, pH levels, total organic carbon, and total bacteria counts were recorded in feather meal, egg membrane, and hair waste. The weekly study showed that feather meal (68.79%, decompose faster than cow hoof (18.72%) egg membrane (60.89%) hair waste (62.82%) and cow horn (32.31%) during bio-composting. This finding has potential application in the treatment process of keratin wastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organophosphates (OPs) and synthetic pyrethroids (SPs) are the most popular broad spectrum pesticides, used in agriculture as they have a strong pesticidal activity while also being biodegradable in the environment. The present study aimed to demonstrate the effects of these pesticides on the Acetylcholinesterase (AChE) activity in brain, gills and body muscles of Oreochromis niloticus – an important enzyme for the assessment and biomonitoring pollution caused by neurotoxins in the environment. The fish were exposed for 24 and 48 h to the LC0 concentrations of the malathion (1.425 mg/L), the chlorpyrifos (0.125 mg/L) and the λ-cyhalothrin (0.0039 mg/L), respectively. The activity of the AChE was significantly increased (p < 0.05) at 24 h and decreased at 48 h (except for the chlorpyrifos-treated brain and gills while tissues had shown no activity at 48 h's exposure) in all pesticides-treated tissues. The maximum increase in the activity and inhibition in the AChE activity were recorded as +92% and −52% in the chlorpyrifos and the lambda-cyhalothrin exposed brain tissues, respectively. Thus, the alterations in the AChE activities indicated that the applied pesticides are highly neurotoxic to fish and the enzyme (AChE) could be used as a useful biomarker for estimation of water pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Proceedings of the Estonian Academy of Sciences is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus 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.)