Genome shuffling is a powerful strategy for rapid engineering of microbial strains for desirable industrial phenotypes. Here we improved the thermotolerance and ethanol tolerance of an industrial yeast strain SM-3 by genome shuffling while simultaneously enhancing the ethanol productivity. The starting population was generated by protoplast ultraviolet irradiation and then subjected for the recursive protoplast fusion. The positive colonies from the library, created by fusing the inactivated protoplasts were screened for growth at 35, 40, 45, 50 and 55 degrees C on YPD-agar plates containing different concentrations of ethanol. Characterization of all mutants and wild-type strain in the shake-flask indicated the compatibility of three phenotypes of thermotolerance, ethanol tolerance and ethanol yields enhancement. After three rounds of genome shuffling, the best performing strain, F34, which could grow on plate cultures up to 55 degrees C, was obtained. It was found capable of completely utilizing 20% (w/v) glucose at 45-48 degrees C, producing 9.95% (w/v) ethanol, and tolerating 25% (v/v) ethanol stress.

Substitution of feed protein source with defatted black soldier fly larvae meal (BSFM) has been evaluated intensively in poultry, but information about full-fatted BSFM is still very limited. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of dietary low inclusion of full-fatted BSFM on the growth performance, plasma antioxidant ability, nutrient digestibility, and gut health of layer chickens during 1–42 days of age. A total of 480 female 1-day-old Hy-Line Brown chickens were divided into four dietary treatments, with the inclusion of 0, 3, 6, and 9% of full-fatted BSFM. Each treatment included six replicates and 20 birds per replicate. As dietary full-fatted BSFM inclusion levels increased, there was a quadratic increase in final weight and average daily gain and a quadratic decrease in feed/gain ratio. Dietary full-fatted BSFM inclusion levels increased the digestibility of crude protein and ether extract quadratically as well as ileum mucosal sIgA concentration linearly, but these had no effect on intestinal morphology. Additionally, an increase in dietary full-fatted BSFM inclusion levels resulted in a linear increase in glutathione peroxidase and total superoxide dismutase activities and a linear decrease in malondialdehyde content in plasma. The encouraging results of the improvement of growth performance, nutrient digestibility, antioxidant ability, and gut health parameters suggested that partially full-fatted BSFM inclusion can be suitable protein ingredients for layer chickens' diets at the starter period.

Environmental pollution threatens public health and has become a social concern in recent years. Despite the conditions for public participation in environmental governance have improved considerably, the level of public engagement in government projects still falls short of expectations. Therefore, this article introduced two key variables, hoping to answer the following research question that how environmental concerns and governance performance affect public environmental participation. Through principal component analysis of the data from the “Survey of Chinese Urban Residents’ Attitudes toward Environmental Protection”, the findings of this article are as follows: First, public environmental concerns have no significant impact on their environmental engagement; second, the improvement of residents’ confidence in the government performance of environmental management reduces their willingness to participate in official projects. The higher the confidence in the government’s performance, the lower the level of public engagement is. Moreover, due to the consideration of self-interest or lack of environmental awareness, those who oppose waste incineration in waste terminal disposal tend to take a non-participatory role in waste sorting programs. Therefore, we suggest that the government have more diverse shareholders in environmental protection, so it should expand public participation through education, publicity, mobilization, and incentives.

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