1 Division of Genetics and Molecular Biology, Institute of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 2 Novel Bacteria and Drug Discovery Research Group, School of Pharmacy, Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Malaysia, 3 UKM Medical Molecular Biology Institute, UKM Medical Centre, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4 Cente...

The tribe Bovini contains a number of commercially and culturally important species, such as cattle. Understanding their evolutionary time scale is important for distinguishing between post-glacial and domestication-associated population expansions, but estimates of bovine divergence times have been hindered by a lack of reliable calibration points. We present a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis o...

Although in the cow the genetic resistance to brucellosis has been previously attributed to the Slc11A1 gene encoding Nramp1 protein, none of the mutations described to date seems to be the cause. To be able to associate another polymorphism of the gene to brucellosis resistance, we characterized the gene and identified in different breeds of Bos taurus and Bos indicus, six new variants among a...

Grasses, by their high productivity even under very low pCO2, their ability to survive repeated burning and to tolerate long dry seasons, have transformed the terrestrial biomes in the Neogene and Quaternary. The expansion of grasslands at the cost of biodiverse forest biomes in Madagascar is often postulated as a consequence of the Holocene settlement of the island by humans. However, we show ...

SOME ASPECTS OF THE EPIDEMIOLOGY OF BABESIA BOVIS IN SANTANA DO LIVRAMENTO, SOUTHERN BRAZIL. Some aspects of the epidemiology of Babesia bovis were studied in Santana do Livramento, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil by analysing cattle raising practices applied to 101 herds and by diagnosing B. bovis antibodies in cattle of about 11 months old using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay. Herds with prev...

In Exp. 1, we evaluated the effects of 2 lengths of progesterone exposure [CIDR (controlled intravaginal drug release); 7 vs. 14 d] before a modified CO-Synch protocol [50.0-microg injection of GnRH 6.5 d before a 25.0-mg injection of PGF(2alpha) followed by another injection of GnRH and fixed-time AI (TAI) 2 d after PGF(2alpha)], with or without temporary weaning (TW) before GnRH treatments, o...

A genome wide-association study for production traits in cattle was carried out using genotype data from the 10K Affymetrix (Santa Clara, CA) and the 50K Illumina (San Diego, CA) SNP chips. The results for residual feed intake (RFI), BW, and hip height in 3 beef breed types (Bos indicus, Bos taurus, and B. indicus × B. taurus), and for stature in dairy cattle, are presented. The aims were to di...

A review of ‘lost’, obscure and poorly known African bird species: Butchart T corpse was partially squashed into the soil in a vehicle track, but it caught the attention of a group of British and Ethiopian wildlife surveyors during a night survey of Nechisar National Park, Ethiopia. As they prised it free, a few feathers blew away, but they salvaged a wing in good condition. It was about midnig...

Animals that live in a tropical environment are exposed to a variety of pathogens, including tick-borne pathogens, tsetse-borne pathogens and intestinal parasites. The clinical significance of pathogens on a population basis is in part determined by the exposure rate of animals to these pathogens. If the prevalence of pathogens is significantly high, the risk of exposure is high and the potenti...