Effects of Compound Acidifier on Growth Performance and Serum Biochemical Parameters of Heat-stressed Wenchang Chickens

[Objective]The paper was to investigate the effects of compound acidifier on growth performance and serum biochemical parameters of heat-stressed Wenchang chickens.[Method]A total of 28881-day-old Wenchang chickens with the same genetic background and similar initial weight(985.63±20.35 g)were randomly divided into four groups,four replicates per group and 18 chickens per replicate.Birds were fed the basal diet supplemented with 0 g/kg(control group),1 g/kg(groupⅠ),2 g/kg(groupⅡ)and 3 g/kg(groupⅢ)compound acidifier.The trial lasted 35 d.[Result]The daily gain of experimental groupⅠwas significantly higher than those of control group and groupⅢ(P<0.05),and the feed intake of experimental groupⅠwas also markedly higher than that of control group(P<0.05),but the feed gain ratio of experimental groupⅠwas significantly lower than that of groupⅢ(P<0.05).Compared with control group,the serum total protein and albumin levels of experimental groupⅠincreased(P>0.05),but the serum uric acid concentration decreased(P>0.05).[Conclusion]Supplementing 1 g/kg compound acidifier could improve the growth performance of heat-stressed Wenchang chickens.

Physiological and Biochemical Effects of 24-Epibrassinolide on Heat-Stress Adaptation in Maize (Zea mays L.)

Brassinosteroids (BRs) are a family of about 70 structurally related polyhydroxy steroidal phytohormones that regulate a number of physiological processes in plants. Among these, brassinolide (BL), 28-homobrassinolide (28-homoBL) and 24-epibrassinolide (24-EpiBL) are more common. The present study aims at studying the usefulness of 24-epiBL in ameliorating the impacts of heat-stress in maize along with its role in regulating cellular antioxidant defense system. Maize hybrid PMH 3 was grown in pots in a green house maintained at 14 hours day (25℃)/10hours night (17℃). A solution of 24-epiBL (1 μM) was applied externally at V4 stage. Leaf tissues were sampled from both treated and control plants. Subsequently, both the groups of pots were placed in plant growth chamber maintained at high temperature (48℃;RH 50%). Plants were sampled for biochemical analysis after 3, 6, 9, 24 and 48 hours of high temperature exposure. Exogenous application of 24-EpiBL arrested protein degradation and enhanced cell membrane stability, as compared to the control. The biochemical activities of antioxidant enzymes such as catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and peroxidase (POX) were found to be dynamically and variably modulated post 24-epiBL treatment. Thus, the study supports the role of BRs as anti-stress agents.

Positive effect of porphyrans on the lifespan and vitality of Drosophila melanogaster

The effects of degraded porphyran (P1) and natural porphyran (P) on the lifespan and vitality of Drosophila melanogaster are studied. The porphyrans, added daily to the food medium at 0.2% and 1% concentrations, can significantly increase the lifespan in average of 55.79 and 58.23 d in 0.2% P1 diet females and 1% P1 diet males, extending by 12.29% and 8.60% over the corresponding controls, respectively. The effects of porphyrans on D. melanogaster in heat-stress condition were also examined, and found a remarkable increase in survival time. The results which are consistently associated with the use of porphyrans are related to their free radical scavenger action. Considerable increase in vitality demonstrated that vitalities of middle-aged fly (assessed by measuring their mating capacity) was observed after porphyrans addition. Therefore, porphyrans are effective in reducing the rate of aging, and P1 in low molecular weight is better than natural P.

HsfAld, a Protein Identified via FOX Hunting Using Thellungiella salsuginea cDNAs Improves Heat Tolerance by Regulating Heat-Stress-Responsive Gene Expression

Thellungiella salsuginea （formerly T. halophila）, a species closely related to Arabidopsis （Arabidopsis thali-ana）, is tolerant not only to high salt levels, but also to chilling, freezing, and ozone. Here, we report that T. salsuginea also shows greater heat tolerance than Arabidopsis. We identified T. salsuginea HsfAld （TsHsfAld） as a gene that can confer marked heat tolerance on Arabidopsis. TsHsfAld was identified via Full-length cDNA Over-eXpressing gene （FOX） hunt-ing from among a collection of heat-stress-related T. salsuginea cDNAs. Transgenic Arabidopsis overexpressing TsHsfAld showed constitutive up-regulation of many genes in the Arabidopsis AtHsfA1 regulon under normal growth tempera-ture. in Arabidopsis mesophyll protoplasts, TsHsfAld was localized in both the nucleus and the cytoplasm. TsHsfAld also interacted with AtHSP90, which negatively regulates AtHsfAls by forming HsfA1-HSP90 complexes in the cytoplasm. It is likely that the partial nuclear localization of TsHsfAld induced the expression of the AtHsfAld regulon in the transgenic plants at normal temperature. We also discovered that transgenic Arabidopsis plants overexpressing AtHsfAldwere more heat-tolerant than wild-type plants and up-regulated the expression of the HsfAld regulon, as was observed in TsHsfAld-overexpressing plants. We propose that the products of both TsHsfAld and AtHsfAld function as positive regulators of Arabidopsis heat-stress response and would be useful for the improvement of heat-stress tolerance in other plants.

Cloud-based data management system for automatic real-time data acquisition from large-scale laying-hen farms

Management of poultry farms in China mostly relies on manual labor.Since such a large amount of valuable data for the production process either are saved incomplete or saved only as paper documents,making it very difficult for data retrieve,processing and analysis.An integrated cloud-based data management system(CDMS)was proposed in this study,in which the asynchronous data transmission,distributed file system,and wireless network technology were used for information collection,management and sharing in large-scale egg production.The cloud-based platform can provide information technology infrastructures for different farms.The CDMS can also allocate the computing resources and storage space based on demand.A real-time data acquisition software was developed,which allowed farm management staff to submit reports through website or smartphone,enabled digitization of production data.The use of asynchronous transfer in the system can avoid potential data loss during the transmission between farms and the remote cloud data center.All the valid historical data of poultry farms can be stored to the remote cloud data center,and then eliminates the need for large server clusters on the farms.Users with proper identification can access the online data portal of the system through a browser or an APP from anywhere worldwide.

Effect of cooling pad installation on indoor airflow distribution in a tunnel-ventilated laying-hen house

Extra cooling pads on the sidewalls are needed for larger poultry houses using tunnel ventilation system.Preliminary study showed that the airflow velocity going through different aisles varies greatly when the extra pads are installed at the end of sidewalls,making a“[”-shape air inlet.Combined with field tests,the CFD(computational fluid dynamics)technology was used to study the uniformity of airflow distribution in a tunnel-ventilated laying-hen house.The air distribution was first monitored in a layer house to find the main reason resulting in the variations of airflows in different aisles.Then CFD simulations were carried out with different distances(D=2 m,3 m or 4 m)between the pads on end-wall and the extra pads on side walls.The field test showed that airflow streams from the different groups of cooling pads collided vertically at the house corners,mixed with each other,then flew towards the center of the house.This was the main reason that the wind speed in the middle aisle was much higher than in other aisles,leaving large zones of lower ventilation in the aisles adjacent to the sidewalls.The results of CFD simulations indicated that air distributions could be significantly improved when the extra pieces of pads were moved away for an appropriate distance from the end coolingpads.As far as conventional poultry house with a span of 12 m,the air speeds in different aisles were more uniform when this distance was about 3 m.

Mutualistic fungal endophytes produce phytohormones and organic acids that promote japonica rice plant growth under prolonged heat stress

This study identifies the potential role in heat-stress mitigation of phytohormones and other secondary metabolites produced by the endophytic fungus Paecilomyces formosus LWL1 in japonica rice cultivar Dongjin. The japonica rice was grown in controlled chamber conditions with and without P. formosus LWL1 under no stress （NS） and prolonged heat stress （HS） conditions. Endophytic association under NS and HS conditions significantly improved plant growth attributes, such as plant height, fresh weight, dry weight, and chlorophyll content. Furthermore, P. for- mosus LWL1 protected the rice plants from HS compared with controls, indicated by the lower endogenous level of stress-signaling compounds such as abscisic acid （25.71%） and jasmonic acid （34.57%） and the increase in total protein content （18.76%-33.22%）. Such fungal endophytes may be helpful for sustainable crop production under high environmental temperatures.