[Diagnosis and treatment of imported eosinophilia in travellers and immigrants: Recommendations of the Spanish Society of Tropical Medicine and International Health (SEMTSI)]

According to published data, prevalence of imported eosinophilia among travellers and immigrants is set between 8% and 28.5%. Etiological diagnosis is often troublesome, and depending on the depth of the study and on the population analyzed, a parasitic cause is identified in 17% to 75.9% of the individuals. Among the difficulties encountered to compare studies are the heterogeneity of the studied populations, the type of data collection (prospective/retrospective) and different diagnostic protocols. In this document the recommendations of the expert group of the Spanish Society of Tropical Medicine and International Health (SEMTSI) for the diagnosis and treatment of imported eosinophilia are detailed.

Physical stability of N,N-dimethyldecanamide/α-pinene-in-water emulsions as influenced by surfactant concentration

In recent years, interest in submicron emulsions has increased due to their high stability and potential applications in the encapsulation and release of active ingredients in many industrial fields, such as the food industry, pharmaceuticals or agrochemicals. Furthermore, the social demand for eco-friendly solutions to replace hazardous solvents in many dispersion formulations has steadily risen. In this study, the influence of surfactant concentration on the formation and physical stability of submicron oil-in-water emulsions using a high-pressure dual-channel homogenizer (microfluidizer) has been investigated. The formulation involved the use of a blend of two green solvents (N,N-dimethyldecanamide and α-pinene) as dispersed phase and a nonionic polyoxyethylene glycerol ester derived from coconut oil as emulsifier (Levenol^® C-201), which enjoys a European eco-label. Therefore, these emulsions may find applications as matrices for agrochemicals. Physical stability and rheological properties of the emulsions studied showed an important dependence on the eco-friendly surfactant concentration. The lowest surfactant concentration (1wt%) yielded the onset of a creaming process after a short aging time and was not enough to avoid recoalescence during emulsification. On the other hand, the higher surfactant concentrations (4-5wt%) resulted in depletion flocculation, which in turn triggered emulsion destabilization by coalescence. The optimum physical stability was exhibited by emulsions containing intermediate surfactant concentrations (2-3wt%) since coalescence was hardly significant and the onset of a weak creaming destabilization process was substantially delayed.

Dinámica de la Leucosis Bovina en el ganado criollo Hartón del Valle en infección natural

Los bovinos criollos presentan características adaptativas de importancia. Se ha propuesto que el desarrollo y/o progresión de la leucosis bovina tiene bases genéticas. En el presente trabajo se estudió la dinámica del virus de la leucosis bovina en el ganado criollo Hartón del Valle en condiciones de infección natural. En 93 animales Hartón del Valle (HV), 30 Lucerna (LUC) y 30 Holstein (HOL) se evaluó la presencia del VLB por PCR-anidada, el desarrollo de linfocitosis por extendido en placa, los títulos de anticuerpos usando ELISA y la carga proviral mediante PCR en tiempo real, en tres muestreos durante un año. Se estimaron los porcentajes de animales infectados y se realizaron pruebas de independencia entre las variables evaluadas. Se encontró un efecto racial significativo sobre el desarrollo de la leucosis bovina, los animales de la raza Hartón presentaron menor tasa de infección del VLB (38,3%), desarrollaron menos linfocitosis persistente (15%), tuvieron mayores títulos de anticuerpos contra el virus (97,6) y mantuvieron la carga proviral más baja (663828 copias/ng de ADN) que las razas Lucerna y Holstein. Los datos aquí presentados pueden ser utilizados en programas de erradicación y control de la enfermedad. Se concluye que el ganado criollo Hartón del Valle puede ser considerado un progresor lento de la leucosis bovina.

Large expansion of oil industry in the Ecuadorian Amazon: biodiversity vulnerability and conservation alternatives

Ecuador will experience a significant expansion of the oil industry in its Amazonian region, one of the most biodiverse areas of the world. In view of the changes that are about to come, we explore the conflicts between oil extraction interests and biodiversity protection and apply systematic conservation planning to identify priority areas that should be protected in different oil exploitation scenarios. First, we quantified the current extent of oil blocks and protected zones and their overlap with two biodiversity indicators: 25 ecosystems and 745 species (whose distributions were estimated via species distribution models). With the new scheme of oil exploitation, oil blocks cover 68% (68,196 km²) of the Ecuadorian Amazon; half of it occupied by new blocks open for bids in the southern Amazon. This region is especially vulnerable to biodiversity losses, because peaks of species diversity, 19 ecosystems, and a third of its protected zones coincide spatially with oil blocks. Under these circumstances, we used Marxan software to identify priority areas for conservation outside oil blocks, but their coverage was insufficient to completely represent biodiversity. Instead, priority areas that include southern oil blocks provide a higher representation of biodiversity indicators. Therefore, preserving the southern Amazon becomes essential to improve the protection of Amazonian biodiversity in Ecuador, and avoiding oil exploitation in these areas (33% of the extent of southern oil blocks) should be considered a conservation alternative. Also, it is highly recommended to improve current oil exploitation technology to reduce environmental impacts in the region, especially within five oil blocks that we identified as most valuable for the conservation of biodiversity. The application of these and other recommendations depends heavily on the Ecuadorian government, which needs to find a better balance between the use of the Amazon resources and biodiversity conservation.

The mossy north: an inverse latitudinal diversity gradient in European bryophytes

It remains hotly debated whether latitudinal diversity gradients are common across taxonomic groups and whether a single mechanism can explain such gradients. Investigating species richness (SR) patterns of European land plants, we determine whether SR increases with decreasing latitude, as predicted by theory, and whether the assembly mechanisms differ among taxonomic groups. SR increases towards the south in spermatophytes, but towards the north in ferns and bryophytes. SR patterns in spermatophytes are consistent with their patterns of beta diversity, with high levels of nestedness and turnover in the north and in the south, respectively, indicating species exclusion towards the north and increased opportunities for speciation in the south. Liverworts exhibit the highest levels of nestedness, suggesting that they represent the most sensitive group to the impact of past climate change. Nevertheless, although the extent of liverwort species turnover in the south is substantially and significantly lower than in spermatophytes, liverworts share with the latter a higher nestedness in the north and a higher turn-over in the south, in contrast to mosses and ferns. The extent to which the similarity in the patterns displayed by spermatophytes and liverworts reflects a similar assembly mechanism remains, however, to be demonstrated.

How to describe species richness patterns for bryophyte conservation?

A large amount of data for inconspicuous taxa is stored in natural history collections; however, this information is often neglected for biodiversity patterns studies. Here, we evaluate the performance of direct interpolation of museum collections data, equivalent to the traditional approach used in bryophyte conservation planning, and stacked species distribution models (S‐SDMs) to produce reliable reconstructions of species richness patterns, given that differences between these methods have been insufficiently evaluated for inconspicuous taxa. Our objective was to contrast if species distribution models produce better inferences of diversity richness than simply selecting areas with the higher species numbers. As model species, we selected Iberian species of the genus Grimmia (Bryophyta), and we used four well‐collected areas to compare and validate the following models: 1) four Maxent richness models, each generated without the data from one of the four areas, and a reference model created using all of the data and 2) four richness models obtained through direct spatial interpolation, each generated without the data from one area, and a reference model created with all of the data. The correlations between the partial and reference Maxent models were higher in all cases (0.45 to 0.99), whereas the correlations between the spatial interpolation models were negative and weak (−0.3 to −0.06). Our results demonstrate for the first time that S‐SDMs offer a useful tool for identifying detailed richness patterns for inconspicuous taxa such as bryophytes and improving incomplete distributions by assessing the potential richness of under‐surveyed areas, filling major gaps in the available data. In addition, the proposed strategy would enhance the value of the vast number of specimens housed in biological collections.

Diversidad genética de la gallina criolla del Suroccidente Colombiano

En Colombia, la gallina Criolla es socialmente importante por su aporte nutricional, fácil reproducción, adaptabilidad y rusticidad. Por lo tanto, ha sido necesario conocer cómo es su diversidad, relaciones y estructura genética. El objetivo de este estudio fue ccontribuir al conocimiento de la biodiversidad del país y al desarrollo agropecuario sostenible, mediante el estudio de la diversidad genética de aves criollas. Se analizaron 224 muestras de ADN de gallina Criolla colombiana provenientes de los departamentos del Cauca, Caldas, Chocó, Nariño y Valle del Cauca, y 20 de líneas comerciales, mediante 17 marcadores microsatélites, realizándoles extracción de ADN por el método de Salting Out y posteriormente amplificando por reacción en cadena de la polimerasa (PCR). El análisis estadístico para evaluar la diversidad genética se realizó a través de los programas ARLEQUIN v. 3.5, GENALEX v. 6.5, Microsatellite Toolkit y FSTAT. La estructura de las poblaciones se determinó por el programa STRUCTURE v. 2.3.4. Se encontraron 79 alelos para las poblaciones. El número promedio de alelos para la gallina Criolla fue de 4,65±1,66. La heterocigosidad esperada fue mayor que la observada y varió de 0,59 en Chocó a 0,62 en el Valle del Cauca. El FIS fue de 0,40 (p