Flavonoid contents as aglycones (for quercetin, kaempherol, isorhamnetin, luteolin and apigenin) were reported for 115 edible plants (91 species). Plant materials mostly originated in tropical zones were grown and harvested from AVRDC, Taiwan. Acid extraction and HPLC were used as analytical methods. Total flavonoid contents ranged from 0 to 254 mg/100g fresh weight. About 75% of samples were f...

[1] Regional precipitation anomalies under El Niño or global warming scenarios manifest considerable spatial variability, especially in the vicinity of tropical deep convective zones. Using a simplified set of equations, we develop an analytic prototype of convective margins for tropical land regions subject to inflow from adjacent ocean regions. The approach yields an expression for the locati...

Nymphalid butterflies are a diverse tropical group that has shown promise as an ‘indicator species’ of habitat health. This classification correlates to their sensitivity to both climatic and ecological disturbance due to a relatively short life cycle and host-plant reliance (DeVries 1987). For the past two years, changes in the number of fruit-feeding Nymphalid butterfly individuals and specie...

Influenza causes significant morbidity in tropical regions; however, unlike in temperate zones, influenza in the tropics is not strongly associated with a given season. We have recently shown that influenza virus transmission in the guinea pig model is most efficient under cold, dry conditions, which are rare in the tropics. Herein, we report the lack of aerosol transmission at 30°C and at all ...

Ocean acidification is a pervasive threat to coral reef ecosystems, and our understanding of the ecological processes driving patterns in tropical benthic community development in conditions of acidification is limited. We deployed limestone recruitment tiles in low aragonite saturation (Ωarag) waters during an in-situ field experiment at Puerto Morelos, Mexico, and compared them to tiles place...

In tropical regions, fires propagate readily in grasslands but typically consume only edges of forest patches. Thus, forest patches grow due to tree propagation and shrink by fires in surrounding grasslands. The interplay between these competing edge effects is unknown, but critical in determining the shape and stability of individual forest patches, as well the landscape-level spatial distribu...

A new species of parasitic nematode, Cystoopsis atractostei (Trichinelloidea: Cystoopsidae), is described based on female specimens recovered from the subcutaneous tissue of the tropical gar, Atractosteus tropicus Gill (Lepisosteiformes: Lepisosteidae), from 2 localities (Canal Nueva Esperanza and Canal Tabasquillo) of the Pantanos de Centla Biological Reserve, State of Tabasco, southeastern Me...

During 2004-2014, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) declared 54% of plague cases worldwide. Using national data, we characterized the epidemiology of human plague in DRC for this period. All 4,630 suspected human plague cases and 349 deaths recorded in DRC came from Orientale Province. Pneumonic plague cases (8.8% of total) occurred during 2 major outbreaks in mining camps in the equat...

Acute respiratory infections are the single most common infective cause of death worldwide. This is also the case in the tropics, where they are a major cause of death in children under five. Bacterial pneumonia is particularly common in children in the tropics, and is more often lethal. Pulmonary tuberculosis is the single most common fatal infection and is more prevalent in many parts of the ...