Annual Research & Review in Biology

Between the months of May and August, 2014, a disease outbreak in two small poultry farms consisting of 600 and 550 Isa Brown layers both located in Umuahia, Abia state was reported to the Veterinary Teaching Hospital of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike. The two flocks, ages 31 and 41 weeks respectively, were vaccinated with MD vaccine mixed with gentamicine at day old. The clinical signs observed in the layers were paleness of the comb, emaciation, marked reduction in egg production, low morbidity and mortality rates of 4.7% and 2.3% in the first farm and 9.5% and 2.7% in the second farm. Postmortem revealed prominent neoplastic nodular lesions in their visceral organs. The histopathology of the affected organs of the birds showed highly pleomorphic lymphoid proliferation of the tissues. Based on the clinical signs, postmortem lesions and histopathology, the disease was diagnosed as acute Marek’s disease.

The use of organic wastes, from municipal and industrial activities, as source of plant nutrients and soil conditioners increased worldwide. However, there is a concern with the environmental pollution.
Currently, these organic wastes are disposed in open dump in developing countries or in landfills in the developed ones. The main soil indicator used to evaluate the effect of organic wastes on soil is soil microbial biomass.
Soil microbial biomass is very sensitive to environmental impact and there are already several studies evaluating the effect of organic wastes on soil microbial properties. Nowadays, the studies are focusing soil microbial diversity as the use of molecular biology tools.
The current review addresses the effects of use of organic waste, from municipal and industrial sources, in agriculture and their effects on soil microbial biomass.

Background: Nowadays, there is a great interest towards medical and nutritional properties of Spirulina platensis due to its beneficial compounds. The purpose of this study was to incorporate Iranian traditional cookies with S. platensis biomass as a supplement ingredient.
Materials and Methods: The wheat flour was replaced with microalga powder at 0, 0.5, 1 and 1.5% w/w and the impacts of incorporation on physical, nutritional, antioxidant, antistaling and organoleptic characteristics of cookies were evaluated.
Results: Results showed that iron, protein and γ-linolenic acid content of fortified cookies increased as a result of S. platensis incorporation, coupled antioxidant properties. According to organoleptic evaluation by hedonic tests, samples containing 1-1.5% S. platensis received highest scores after control.
Conclusion: It was possible to produce fortified cookies with suitable nutritional and organoleptic properties by addition of S. platensis.

Aims: The specific objective of this study was to estimate the genetic components for some physiological parameters to use in breeding programs.
Place and Duration of Study: The present research was conducted in the Experiments Farm at University Putra Malaysia (UPM) during crop season 2010-2011.
Methodology: Eight bread wheat cultivars were used as parents and crosses for a half-diallel among these wheat cultivars were made in the Agriculture and Natural Resources Research Center of Sistan-Iran and genotypes were arranged as a Completely Randomised Block Design at research farms of university Putra Malysia.
Results: The combining ability analysis of variance showed that both general (GCA) and specific combining ability (SCA) variances were highly significant for all the characters except chlorophyll content for SCA, indicating the importance of both additive and non-additive gene effects. Chamran for relative water content and grain yield was the best combiner and the most narrow sense heritability belongs to stomatal conductance.
Conclusion: The eight wheat traits analyzed in this study were under dominance gene effects, Chamran with large, positive and significant GCA effects could be used as parent with desirable genes for genetic.

Midchannel subtidal Polychaete Fauna were collected at the Bonny-estuary and analysed for their composition and abundance in relation to biotic and abiotic factors that are associated with life history strategies through a twelve-month cycle. The diversity index of Shannon-Weiner (0.637 to 2.252) showed that monthly diversity ranges from low to moderate, while the diversity index of Margalef (0.558 to 2.667) showed a moderate to high species diversity. Two Polychaete associations were identified -the generalists made up of 12 species with frequent occurrences and the specialists made up of 13 species with single month occurrences. The species turnover among the specialists with single month occurrences seems to be governed by environmental processes. In contrast, the generalists with the ability to recur throughout the sampling period seem to be less restricted by the prevailing environmental conditions. A positive correlation was observed between Polychaete abundance and silt/clay (p>0.05 r = 0.5429) and organic matter (p>0.05 r = 0.8857), which shows that both organic matter and silt/clay were important in promoting the abundance and diversity of the Polychaete fauna in the study area. The study provides evidence that variation in occurrence of the Polychaetes operates on a range of scales with differing responses to abiotic variables. This should be considered in environmental impact assessments and monitoring studies to fully account for observed distribution.

Molecular analyses were performed on 14 isolates of Penicillium species. The Penicillium isolates examined were collected from different localities and habitats of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and maintained on Czapek Dox's and Waksman's media.
Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD-PCR) technique was used in this study to distinguish these isolates. A total of 42 DNA bands were generated by these primers in the Penicillium isolates grown on Czapek Dox's medium while, Penicillium isolates grown on Waksman's medium, 43 DNA bands were generated by the primers. Of the polymorphic bands that were identified in the Penicillium isolates grown on Czapek Dox's medium, two were unique, while no such bands could be detected in the Penicillium isolates grown on Waksman's medium. Penicillium isolates grown on both Czapek Dox's and Waksman's media, 40 monomorphic bands were detected. These monomorphic bands were used to distinguish among the studied Penicillium isolates under study.
Data were analysed by a clustering method and similarity coefficients using NTSYSpc version 2.02i. The relationships between the species and isolates are discussed.

Palm oil, the oil derived from palm fruit, is the major oil used for cooking in Nigeria. Palm oil has half of its fatty acids made up of saturated fatty acids and 43% made up of palmitic acid. The unrefined red palm oil is the form in which most Nigerians use palm oil and it is generally regarded safer for cardiovascular health than other branded vegetable oils. Although the overall contribution of palm oil to cardiovascular health is still controversial and subject to on-going research, the high concentration of saturated fatty acids in palm oil presents palm oil as detrimental oil to cardiovascular health since dietary saturated fatty acids is an important risk of cardiovascular disease.