Intraand inter-specific competition between seedlings of Acacia etbaica Schweinf. and the grass Hyparrenia hirta (L.) Stapf. was studied to evaluate the influence of the perennial grass on the establishment of the tree seedlings. The experiment was conducted using a replacement series in which plants were grown in a greenhouse at an overall density of six individuals per pot, providing combinat...

Germination is the first stage in plant life cycle confronted with soil salinity and because of expanded saline areas around the world it is important to determine salt effects on this stage. In this study, we report an in vitro procedure for studying germination of Acacia spp. under salt stress with different NaCl and KCl concentrations. Seeds of Acacia tortilis (Forssk.) Hayne and Acacia oerf...

In this paper we report results of skin prick tests (SPT) using pollen extracts on 200 patients with clinical symptoms of asthma, and results of a parallel study in which pollen was collected and classified over a period of 18 months. The patients were outpatients from the University Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the pollen grains were collected with a spore trap placed in the campu...

We quantified the fruit set of four Acacia spp. inside and outside of long-term experimental exclosures in order to examine the fitness consequences of herbivory by large mammals. We found a considerable interspecific variation in the reproductive fitness costs of herbivory in four African Acacia spp. Acacia nilotica and A. brevispica respond to protection from large mammalian herbivores by gre...

Contarinia manii (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) is described as a new species, on the basis of adults reared from remarkable 'cylinder-piston' galls formed from contiguous leaflets of Acacia ferruginea D.C. in southern India. These galls have been known since 1952 but adults were not reared until 2007. The new species, and another Indian species, Contarinia ramachandrani (Mani), induce similar but di...

BACKGROUND Over the past years, dust of green coffee beans has become known to be a relevant cause for occupational type I allergies. Up to now, allergy diagnostics is based on native green coffee bean extract which exhibits insufficient specificity due to interfering substances as well as batch-to-batch variations. No coffee allergen has been described on the molecular level so far. The aim of...

In vitro antioxidant activities and neuronal cell protective effects of ethanol extract from roasted coffee beans were investigated. Colombia arabica coffee (Coffea arabica) green beans were roasted to give medium (230°C, 10 min), city (230°C, 12 min) and french (230°C, 15 min) coffee beans. Total phenolics in raw green beans, medium, city and french-roasted beans were 8.81±0.05, 9.77±0.03, 9.9...

The montane rainforests of SW Ethiopia are the primary centre of diversity of Coffea arabica and the origin of all Arabica coffee cultivated worldwide. This wild gene pool is potentially threatened by forest fragmentation and degradation, and by introgressive hybridization with locally improved coffee varieties. We genotyped 703 coffee shrubs from unmanaged and managed coffee populations, using...