International Letters of Natural Sciences Vol. 16

Abstract: Wood degrading capacity of lignicolous fungi was studied by decay test. In which two methods were followed, i) wood chips method ii) wood block method. Eight timbers infected by six fungi were selected for studying percentage of decay and biochemical test was done to know delignification. After 12 months, 90 % of wood block of T. arjuna was decayed by L. stereoides. In teak wood 16.82 % of decay was due to H. apiaria in 3 months. As the percentage of moisture was less, percentage of weight loss was also less; this indicated that decay capacity of fungi will depends on % moisture content in wood. The percentage loss in hot water soluble substrates was more in case of T. crenulata due to L. stereoides for 5 months, whereas lowest in case of teak wood decayed by H. apiaria for 5 months. The percentage loss in ethanol benzene soluble substrate was more in case of Adina wood decayed by C. versicolor for 5 months, whereas lowest in case of teak wood infected with L. stereoides for 3 months. As the incubation period increases, percentage loss in acid soluble lignin was more in case of infected woods. L. stereoides, C. versicolor, and H. apiaria showed selective delignification in all infected woods, whereas T. pini showed simultaneous degradation of lignin in all woods tested. The valuable timber like teak wood was not resistant to wood decay because they loss 50% of lignin. The in vitro wood decay test can‟t be taken as absolute evidence for wood decay behavior of lignin-degrading fungi, so we should conform decay of wood by consider biochemical test. For rapid evaluation of wood decay the wood chip method was best suitable. For the first time the wood decay and biochemical test of 8 wood samples infected by white rot fungi like S. commune, L. stereoides, H. apiaria, C. versicolor, T. pini and soft rot fungi like T. viride was studied.

Abstract: Drinking water is acting as life line for living thing on the Earth, without that no life. Due to global industrialization availability of pure water is one of the major issues. The effluent are directly or indirectly discharge through the river stream, which affect the ground as well as sea water and climatically cycle water reach to us. In that condition medicine are required for quire purpose. In the world so many plants and herbs are available which are used as antimicrobial and sources of medicines. Today the large number of drugs in use is derived from plants. The important advantages for therapeutic uses of medicinal plants in various ailments are their safety besides being economical, effective and easy availability. In this regard’s herb plant Eucalyptus extracted oil is used as antibacterial agent to treat the drinking water.

Abstract: The trees of parks and gardens support many species, the survival of urban-dwelling species mainly bird species. Birds amongst other species provide a wide range of environmental and social functions to cities and urban dwellers. The present study aims to know bird diversity in two parks as bioindicator of automobile air pollution exposure, landscape changes and/or human interactions. The study areas were selected as per heavily-populated neighborhoods, nearby office buildings, nearby roads and continuous vehicular movements, human interactions as visitors, where high levels of human disturbance are common. The study was carried out at 2 sampling stations viz (i) Elliot park and (ii) Agri-horticulture Society. The bird species diversity was studied by qualitative and quantitative assessment. Indices were Species richness, Index of Dominance, Relative abundance, Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and Evenness Index for birds for all selected sites were calculated using the statistical formulae. The present results as bioindicators bird species clearly indicate that the bird species are very few in numbers in both the parks. When comparison made between both the parks, it was observed less number of bird varieties (16 types) in Elliot park than varieties (9 types) more less in number in Agri-horticulture society. This study is a preliminary assessment of bird diversity but further researches are needed in relation to biochemical and genetic damage study as well as air pollution load by using instruments. In the present study it was concluded that the less numbers of birds and their different diversity indices were found a decreasing trends, though there no attempt has been made on physico-chemical properties of present air pollutants. The less number of varieties of bird species are as tolerant bioindicators, which may be due to the vehicular pollution and/or human interference and/or landscape changes due to nearby neighborhood blocks, office and residential buildings, continuous movement of vehicles etc

Abstract: The quality of Amba River in Nasarawa State in the North Central Nigeria was investigated for a period of one year covering dry and rainy season. Water samples were collected from four different locations (Gandu, Wadatan-Waje, Kofan-Kaura and Unguwan-Galadima) along the river course and analyzed for Bacteriological parameter, using standard methods. The results indicated seasonal variation in coliform population with higher values at Wadatan-waje and Unguwan-galadima during rainy season. The values obtained for coliform on the average for the two seasons were beyond the maximum acceptable standard set by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2004) for drinking water. Thus, settlers along the River should be enlightened on the danger of consuming untreated water from the River. Also, measures at regulating the pollution of the River should be taken for a healthy and vibrant community.

Abstract: The present study deals with the statistical analysis of physico-chemical parameters and cyanophycean members of two pond water quality of Chidambaram, Cuddalore district (Tamil Nadu). The qualities of pond water were analyzed for six months. Eleven important parameters were included in statistical analysis. The qualities of pond water have been assessed by calculating mean, standard deviation and correlation coefficient. Correlation studies of hydrobiology with physico-chemical parameters revealed that the relationship between phytoplankton density in general and that of the specific groups are highly complex and often controlled by interactions of different factors. In the both pond water the correlation coefficient test revealed that cyanophycean members positively correlated with temperature, pH, CO2, alkalinity, hardness, nitrate, BOD and COD at 1 % and 5 % level significant, where as it is negatively correlated with acidity and dissolved oxygen. In the present study it can be concluded that the cyanophycean members are highly tolerant organisms. They prefer to grow at higher temperatures and in highly alkaline, BOD and COD waters. Hence they can with stand high levels of contaminated waters of Thillai Kali Kovil pond, when compared to Ilamiyakkinar Kovil pond.

Abstract: With population growth, rising living standards and increasing attention given to environmental issues Water resources management has increased in many countries, water is fast becoming a scarce input. It is study of human development in the twentieth century, and a judgment is only a question of human optimization of water resources and their future generations what it was composed of such questions under the present conditions of as the water crisis (crisis of the Third Millennium) have mentioned, it is appropriate here because the water crisis and lack of use. the effectiveness of this critical resource of local, regional and trans-national and gone and the world has become a complex issue. In this regard, planning and optimal utilization of water resources of the fundamentals principles of sustainable development of natural resources optimal design of irrigation and fertilization management can control the transport of contaminants or so that any combination of water management and to reduce nutrient runoff and deep percolation, providing opportunity for solute infiltration ,reducing sediment and gradually applying fertilizer in due to problems with the economy and ease of use can be substantial.

Abstract: Cabbage (Brassica oleracea Linn.) is one of the important vegetables grown worldwide. Insect pests have been a major constraint to its production with some reported to have developed resistance to commonly available synthetic insecticides. In order to find alternative control for these pests, field experiments were conducted in the early seasons of 2011 and 2012, to evaluate the efficacy of three plant extracts, Tephrosia vogelli Hooks, Zingiber officinales Rosh and Lantana camara Spanish flag, applied at 5, 10 and 25 % w/v concentrations Delthamethrin (a synthethic insecticide) and an unsprayed plot were included as positive and negative controls respectively. Plots were arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD), with three replications. Mean Data over the two planting seasons were subjected to the analysis of variance and significant means were compared using the least significant difference (L.S.D) at P < 0.05. Z. officinales extract effectively control P. xylostella larvae at all concentrations with 25 % w/v gave the best yield of 0.50 kg/ha while T. vogelii and L. camara extracts were as effective as Deltamethrin at different concentrations and hours on diamondback-moth (P. xylostella) adult The present findings indicated that effective botanicals against Diamondback moth adult and larvae of cabbage can be formulated from extract of T. vogelii, L. camara and Z. officinales at 25 % concentration respectively.

Abstract: VPS33B, a human Vacuolar Protein Sorting (VPS) protein which mediates the phagolysosomal fusion in macrophage of the eukaryotic organisms. This protein has a great role during the mycobacterial infections, which binds with the Mycobacterium protein tyrosine phosphatase A (PtpA). A single functional domain of PtpA has been identified using SMART domain databases, followed by finding the antigenicity of PtpA using CLC main workbench tool. The protein-protein interaction network predicts the interface of biological functions of proteins, built by using Cytoscape 2.8.3 version tool for manual literature survey of protein sets. According to the literature the specific interactivity of PtpA with VPS33B of human lead to pathogenesis, and provided a good platform to find the structure of VPS33B as it lacks the 3 dimensional structure in PDB. Homology Modelling of VPS33B provides a significant properties to design a specific drug through screening the drug databases (eDrug3D). The modelled protein has been validated through SAVES server maintained by NIH and UCLA with the standard Ramachandran plot with accuracy of 90.7 %. From our findings the interface residues are very crucial points which has been found through docking the modelled protein and Mycobacterium protein and interface residues were selected manually using PyMol software

Abstract: The present communication pertains to ethnobotany of major weeds of sugarcane fields in Villupuram district, Tamil Nadu. Present study was conducted in ten selected sites of Villupuram district in the sugarcane crop fields. Random quadrate method was adopted for studying phytosociological attributes of weeds. A total of 80 plant species belonging to 25 families were identified, out of which 46 plant species are medicinally important to cure different diseases in human beings directly. Amaranthaceae and Euphorbiaceae was the dominant family seen during observation. Frequency, Relative frequency, Density and Relative density of the species were calculated.

Abstract: Seeds of sesame (Sesamum indicum L), genotypeTMV3 were treated with various concentrations of EMS and Colchicine like 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0, 1.2, 1.4, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 % and the LD50 values observed at 1.0 % of EMS and 0.6 % of Colchicine. Based on their LD50 values appreciable concentrations only selected for further study and their effects on various morphological characters such as plant height per plant, number of branches per plant, number of leaves per plant, days to first flowering, number of capsules per plant, number of seeds per capsule and seed yield per plant (g) were measured quantitatively and the results showed that all the characters were consequently or significantly reduced when compared to control and also EMS showed more effective than colchicine.