Consumption Pattern of Carotene Rich Foods and Development of a Year Calendar

Consumption pattern of beta carotene rich foods from 500 households of Coimbatore district was elicited. Through market surveys in four seasons namely: summer, south-west monsoon, north-east monsoon and winter, a year calendar of beta carotene rich foods was developed. The total and beta carotene contents of five commonly consumed beta carotene rich foods both in raw and cooked states were determined. Results indicated that greens were mainly purchased from market and consumed 2-3 times per week. Cooking loss was maximum in boiling and minimum in shallow fat frying. Curry leaves (Murraya koenigii),amaranth tender (Amaranthus gangeticus), agathi (Sesbania grandopra), and ponnanganni (Alternanthera sessilis) were the carotene rich foods available round the year. Cost of most greens was highest in summer and lowest in north-east monsoon. Within a cost of 13-14 ps in summer, 4-10 ps in south-west monsoon and north-west monsoon and 4-12 ps in winter season, the entire day's requirement of beta carotene (2400μg) could be obtained in the form of agathi/amaranth throughout the year: in the form of drumstick leaves and mint in south-west monsoon; as curry leaves and coriander leaves in winter and as agathi,paruppukeerai and amaranth in summer. From this year calendar, according to seasonal availability and cost, low-cost high carotene foods can be selected and used for increasing the beta carotene intake in the intervention programmes and in the community

Species richness,phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic structure patterns of exotic and native plants along an elevational gradient in the Himalaya

Background:So far,macroecological studies in the Himalaya have mostly concentrated on spatial variation of overall species richness along the elevational gradient.Very few studies have attempted to document the diference in elevational richness patterns of native and exotic species.In this study,this knowledge gap is addressed by integrating data on phylogeny and elevational distribution of species to identify the variation in species richness,phylogenetic diversity and phylogenetic structure of exotic and native plant species along an elevational gradient in the Himalaya.Results:Species distribution patterns for exotic and native species difered;exotics tended to show maximum species richness at low elevations while natives tended to predominate at mid-elevations.Native species assemblages showed higher phylogenetic diversity than the exotic species assemblages over the entire elevational gradient in the Himalaya.In terms of phylogenetic structure,exotic species assemblages showed majorly phylogenetic clustering while native species assemblages were characterized by phylogenetic overdispersion over the entire gradient.Conclusions:The fndings of this study indicate that areas with high native species richness and phylogenetic diversity are less receptive to exotic species and vice versa in the Himalaya.Species assemblages with high native phylogenetic overdispersion are less receptive to exotic species than the phylogenetically clustered assemblages.Diferent ecological processes(ecological fltering in case of exotics and resource and niche competition in case of natives)may govern the distribution of exotic and native species along the elevational gradient in the Himalaya.

Data error propagation in stacked bioclimatic envelope models

Stacking is the process of overlaying inferred species potential distributions for multiple species based on outputs of bioclimatic envelope models(BEMs).The approach can be used to investigate patterns and processes of species richness.If data limitations on individual species distributions are inevitable,but how do they affect inferences of patterns and processes of species richness?We investigate the influence of different data sources on estimated species richness gradients in China.We fitted BEMs using species distributions data for 334 bird species obtained from(1)global range maps,(2)regional checklists,(3)museum records and surveys,and(4)citizen science data using presence-only(Mahalanobis distance),presence-background(MAXENT),and presence–absence(GAM and BRT)BEMs.Individual species predictions were stacked to generate species richness gradients.Here,we show that different data sources and BEMs can generate spatially varying gradients of species richness.The environmental predictors that best explained species distributions also differed between data sources.Models using citizen-based data had the highest accuracy,whereas those using range data had the lowest accuracy.Potential richness patterns estimated by GAM and BRT models were robust to data uncertainty.When multiple data sets exist for the same region and taxa,we advise that explicit treatments of uncertainty,such as sensitivity analyses of the input data,should be conducted during the process of modeling.