Sewage water contains toxic heavy metals which can be translocated and accumulated in plants and subsequently transferred to human body through the food chain, yet it has become the most commonly used water source for irrigating vegetable crops in peri-urban or urban areas of several countries including in Pakistan. Karachi, the metropolitan city of Pakistan, is the largest industrial and financial hub of the country with an estimated 16 Million population of multilingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious peoples. The current study was conducted to examine the accumulation of six heavy metals (Cr, Ni, Cd, Pb, As and Hg) in cabbage, radish, turnip, cauliflower, and carrot crops, irrigated with sewage water (SW) of peri-urban area of the Karachi. Four treatments were designed, the fresh water (FW) was used as the control (T 0 ), whereas T 1 , T 2 T 3 and T 4 contained 25, 50, 75 and 100% of SW respectively. The samples analyzed through atomic absorption spectrophotometer using flame atomic absorption techniques revealed that among the five treatments, accumulation of the six metals was found higher with 100% SW, which was decreased with decrease in SW concentration up to 25% SW. The minimum accumulation of the metal was noted with 100% FW (control). Among the five types of vegetables, cabbage and cauliflower revealed a high tendency of accumulating the metals. Hence, in order to avoid exposure of excess heavy metals to human health through vegetables, the cabbage and cauliflower crops may not be grown in the vicinity of Karachi city where the source of irrigation water is only sewage water.

Pampus fishes (Perciformes: Stromateidae) are important commercial species and include six valid species in China. The southern lesser pomfret (Pampus minor Liu and Li, 1998) is a species of Pampus for which knowledge is incomplete. This report confirms the occurrence of P. minor in the coastal waters of Wenzhou, China, by analyzing five specimens of P. minor obtained in Wenzhou in March 2019. Morphometric measurements and meristic counts were performed. The diagnostic morphological features of these species were consistent with those of the neotype specimen of P. minor and sufficient for separating the examined specimens from other Pampus species. This study was based on the Cytochrome Oxidase Subunit 1 (CO1) gene, which was sequenced for the purpose of identification. The genetic distances between P. minor and other Pampus species ranged from 13.4% to 15.5%, and the mean genetic distance within the P. minor group was 0.2%. Given that P. minor has not been reported in this region, our findings represent the first record from the coastal waters of Wenzhou and extend the distribution range of this species to the central and northern East China Sea. The reason for the observed northward migration of some P. minor individuals from their northernmost recorded habitat (Taiwan Strait) might be global warming. The collection of additional specimens is needed to further study the geographic limits of P. minor and its presumed northern expansion.

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Climate change is a major threat to most of crops grown globally in sub-tropics and tropics. One of the consequences of climate change is drought, which has a negative effect on crop growth and productivity. However, present research drought affected breed wheat was tested to examine the quality of wheat selection for different stage using morphological and phenological traits. Ten genotypes along with two local check varieties were tested in randomize complete block design were used for this experiment. The experiment was conducted in the field of Southern Wheat Research Station, Agriculture Research Institute, Tandojam, in winter season to determine the different levels of tillers per plant, growth vigor, early growth habit, plant type, Leaf type, content of proline in (μ mol. g-1 fresh wt), osmotic potential in (-Mpa) and relative water content in (%) analyzed for significance. The genotypes showed positive significantly differ in response to studied traits. Ten genotypes were sown in three replications, in two blocks. The genotypes were significantly different in response to the moisture stress. There were highly significant differences for all traits. The positive association for studied the parameters between the field trials demonstrated that greater seedling vigor of root and shoot is key factor influencing in wheat. Therefore, our finding suggested that these genotypes had potential to grow well and perform better than other genotypes and check varieties.

In this study, the complete mitochondrial genome (mitogenome) sequence of Sillago sihama has been determined by long polymerase chain reaction and primer walking methods. The complete mitochondrial genome is a circular molecule of 17 003 bp in length and contains 37 mitochondrial genes and a control region. Within the control region, we identified the variable number tandem repeats, as well as the termination-associated sequence domain (TAS), the central conserved sequence block domains (CSB-F∼CSB-A) and the conserved sequence block domains (CSB-1, CSB-2, and CSB-3).