BackgroundUsing animals for different purposes goes back to the dawn of mankind. Animals served as a source of food, medicine, and clothing for humans and provided other services. This study was designed to undertake a cross-sectional ethnozoological field survey among the residents of Metema Woreda from November 2015 to May 2016.MethodsData were collected through studied questionnaires, interviews, and focus group discussions with 36 purposively selected respondents.ResultsEthnozoological data were collected of the local name of the animals, part of the animal used, mode of preparation and administration, and of additional information deemed useful. A total of 51 animal species were identified to treat around 36 different ailments. Of the animals used therapeutically, 27 species were mammals, 9 were birds, 7 arthropods, 6 reptiles, and 1 species each represented fish and annelids. Furthermore, the honey of the bee Apis mellifera was used to relieve many ailments and scored the highest fidelity value (n = 35.97%). The snake (Naja naja) and the teeth of crocodiles (Crocodylus spp.) had the lowest fidelity value (n = 2.56%).ConclusionThe results show that there is a wealth of ethnozoological knowledge to be documented which could be of use in developing new drugs. Hence, it is hoped that the information contained in this paper will be useful in future ethnozoological, ethnopharmacological, and conservation-related research of the region.

Background Sweet sorghum is an emerging biofuel candidate crop with multiple benefits as a source of biomass energy. Increase of biomass and sugar productivity and quality is a central goal in its improvement. Target region amplified polymorphism (TRAP) is a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) based functional marker system that can detect genetic diversity in the functional region of target genes. Thirty sweet sorghum genotypes were used to study the potential of 24 pairs of TRAP marker system in assessing genetic diversity with regard to three lignin and three sucrose biosynthesis genes. Results A total of 1638 bands were produced out of which 1161 (70.88%) were polymorphic at least at one locus. The average polymorphic information content (PIC), resolving power (RP), marker index (MI), Shannon’s diversity index (H), and gene diversity values were 0.32, 8.86, 1.74, 3.25, and 0.329, respectively. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) revealed a highly significant genetic variation both within and among accessions studied (P = 0.01). However, the variation within the population was higher than among the populations (accessions). Bootstrap analysis showed that the number of loci amplified using this marker system is sufficient to estimate the available genetic diversity. The thirty genotypes were categorized into five clusters using a similarity matrix at 0.72 coefficient of similarity. The genotypes were also grouped mostly according to their geographic origin where the Ethiopian and Egyptian genotypes tend to fall in specific clusters. Moreover, the genotypes reflected the same pattern of distribution when ordinated using principal coordinate analysis. Conclusions In conclusion, TRAP marker can be used as a powerful tool to study genetic diversity in sweet sorghum.

Sweet sorghum is an emerging versatile crop species that offers grain for human consumption, fodder for livestock and ethanol for transportation purposes. The knowledge on industrial characters including juice quality traits and sugar components is an indispensable task for improving the crop at commercial level and establish sustainable value chain. In the current study a set of 68 sweet sorghum genotypes comprising land race collections and improved cultivars were evaluated for their fresh biomass yield, stripped stalk yield, dry matter yield, juice yield and quality traits (Purity%, Glucose Recovery%, Reducing sugar%, Sucrose%, and Total soluble sugar). The genotypes showed significant level of variation at p< 0.01 for all the eleven industrial traits regarding the five juice quality parameters measured. The juice purity of the genotypes ranged between 46.04% and 100%. The total soluble solids of the test genotypes had displayed a maximum value of 24.5 and a minimum of 10. The sucrose percent (pol) was found to range between 7.2% and 17.76% percent. This indicates the presence of promising possibility for the future improvement of the crop. The test genotypes were found to be clustered into five distinct clusters. Conclusively, the tested sweet sorghum genotypes displayed a broad range of variability in terms of all the measured industrial crops. The juice quality parameters in the test genotypes were found to be significantly higher as compared to different commercial improved cultivars. This indicates the presence of promising possibility for the future improvement of the crop. The test genotypes were found to be clustered into five distinct clusters. In conclusion, the present study demonstrates that the evaluated sweet 120 YEHIA KHIDR et al. sorghum genotypes had superior performance in terms of their juice yield and quality traits. Hence, they could be exploited in the future improvement of the crop as an industrial crop.