Mbatha, K., Downs, C.T: & Penning, M. Nectar passage and gut morphology in the Malachite Sunbird and the Black-capped Lory: implications for feeding in nectarivores.Nectar passage and digestive tract morphology of two unrelated nectarivorous bird species, the Malachite Sunbird, Nectarinia famosa, ·and the Block-capped Lory, Lorjus·/or~were examined. X-ray techniques were. used to determine the gross anatomy, and the flow of nectar (an artificial sugar solution) along the gastrointestinal tract. The Black-capped lory has a crop while Malachite Sunbirds do not. X-ray analyses showed that labelled meals were briefly stored in the crops of lorys but flowed directly from the oesophagus to the ventriculus in MalachiteSunbir ds. Gut morphology of Malachite Sunbirds and a .Black-capped Lory were also examined. The sunbirds have a simple gastrointestinal tract anatomy without a crop, whereas the Black-capped Lory has a welldeveloped. crop. We hypothesize that in nectar-feeding birds, the presence of a crop confers foraging flexibility. We predict that the presence of a crop allows .Iorys to take larger meals, and hence reduce feeding rate defined as meals/time. Sunbirds on the other hand, must feed frequently.

<span style="font-family: arial,helvetica;">2-Phenoxyethanol was used as an anaesthetic to translocate 102 species of fishes representing 30 families from the Sea World aquarium on Durban's beachfront to uShaka Marine World. Most fishes responded well to a final anaesthetic concentration of 0,150 m<em>ℓ</em> / <em>ℓ</em> and there were no mortalities.</span>

Livestock industry supports the livelihood of around 1.3 billion people in the world, with swine industry contributing with 30% of total livestock production worldwide. To maintain and guarantee this production, a pivotal point according to the OIE is addressing potential biohazards. To control them, permanent sero-surveillance is crucial to achieve more focused veterinary public health intervention and prevention strategies, to break the chains of transmission, and to enable fast responses against outbreaks.Within this context, multiplex assays are powerful tools with the potential to simplify surveillance programs, since they reduce time, labour, and variability within analysis.In the present work, we developed a multiplex bead-based assay for the detection of specific antibodies to six relevant pathogens affecting swine: ASFV, CSFV, PRRSV, SIV, TB and HEV. The most immunogenic target antigen of each pathogen was selected as the target protein to coat different microsphere regions in order to develop this multiplex assay. A total of 1544 serum samples from experimental infections as well as field samples were included in the analysis. The 6-plex assay exhibited credible diagnostic parameters with sensitivities ranging from 87.0% to 97.5% and specificities ranging from 87.9% to 100.0%, demonstrating it to be a potential high throughput tool for surveillance of infectious diseases in swine.

No abstract

Livestock industry supports the livelihood of around 1.3 billion people in the world, with swine industry contributing with 30 % of total livestock production worldwide. To maintain and guarantee this production, a pivotal point according to the OIE is addressing potential biohazards. To control them, permanent sero-surveillance is crucial to achieve more focused veterinary public health intervention and prevention strategies, to break the chains of transmission, and to enable fast responses against outbreaks. Within this context, multiplex assays are powerful tools with the potential to simplify surveillance programs, since they reduce time, labour, and variability within analysis. In the present work, we developed a multiplex bead-based assay for the detection of specific antibodies to six relevant pathogens affecting swine: ASFV, CSFV, PRRSV, SIV, TB, and HEV. The most immunogenic target antigen of each pathogen was selected as the target protein to coat different microsphere regions in order to develop this multiplex assay. A total of 1544 serum samples from experimental infections as well as field samples were included in the analysis. The 6plex assay exhibited credible diagnostic parameters with sensitivities ranging from 87.0 % to 97.5 % and specificities ranging from 87.9 % to 100.0 %, demonstrating it to be a potential high throughput tool for surveillance of infectious diseases in swine.