Más allá de los colores del amaranto

JESUS ALFREDO ARAUJO LEON Víctor Aguilar Hernández Ivonne Sánchez del Pino SERGIO RUBEN PERAZA SANCHEZ ROLFFY RUBEN ORTIZ ANDRADE Ligia Guadalupe Brito Argáez (2022, [Artículo])

El amaranto tiene una amplia gama de colores atrayentes, desde amarillos, violetas hasta rojos intensos. Esta heterogeneidad de tonalidades llamó la atención de civilizaciones que se desarrollaron en todas las latitudes del continente americano, como es el caso del imperio azteca que integró este cultivo a su cosmovisión ceremonial para ofrendas a diferentes deidades, dejando una herencia prehispánica cautivadora de su historia. Más allá de los colores, el presente trabajo tiene como objetivo abordar las propiedades nutricionales y beneficios para la salud humana de la diversidad de fitoquímicos que son responsables de los interesantes colores del amaranto.

AMARANTHACEAE AMARANTHUS BETALAINAS METABOLITOS SECUNDARIOS MEXICO SALUD HUMANA BIOLOGÍA Y QUÍMICA CIENCIAS DE LA VIDA BIOLOGÍA VEGETAL (BOTÁNICA) DESARROLLO VEGETAL DESARROLLO VEGETAL

Shopping for Ecological Indices? On the Use of Incidence-Based Species Compositional Similarity Measures

IAN MACGREGOR FORS FEDERICO ESCOBAR SARRIA JUAN FERNANDO ESCOBAR IBAÑEZ NATALIA MESA SIERRA FREDY ALEXANDER ALVARADO ROBERTO Rafael Rueda Hernández CLAUDIA ELIZABETH MORENO ORTEGA Ina Falfán ERICK JOAQUIN CORRO MENDEZ Eduardo Octavio Pineda Arredondo Amandine Bourg JOSE LUIS AGUILAR LOPEZ (2022, [Artículo])

"β-diversity has been under continuous debate, with a current need to better understand the way in which a new wave of measures work. We assessed the results of 12 incidence-based β-diversity indices. Our results of gradual species composition overlap between paired assemblages considering progressive differences in species richness show the following: (i) four indices (β-2, β-3, β-3.s, and βr) should be used cautiously given that results with no shared species retrieve results that could be misinterpreted; (ii) all measures conceived specifically as partitioned components of species compositional dissimilarities ought to be used as such and not as independent measures per se; (iii) the non-linear response of some indices to gradual species composition overlap should be interpreted carefully, and further analysis using their results as dependent variables should be performed cautiously; and (iv) two metrics (βsim and βsor) behave predictably and linearly to gradual species composition overlap. We encourage ecologists using measures of β-diversity to fully understand their mathematical nature and type of results under the scenario to be used in order to avoid inappropriate and misleading inferences."

Beta diversity Nestedness Replacement Richness difference Species turnover BIOLOGÍA Y QUÍMICA CIENCIAS DE LA VIDA BIOLOGÍA VEGETAL (BOTÁNICA) ECOLOGÍA VEGETAL ECOLOGÍA VEGETAL

Assessing the Spatiotemporal Relationship between Coastal Habitats and Fish Assemblages at Two Neotropical Estuaries of the Mexican Pacific

VICTOR MANUEL MURO TORRES FELIPE AMEZCUA MARTINEZ Gerogina Ramírez Ortiz FRANCISCO JAVIER FLORES DE SANTIAGO Felipe Amezcua Linares Yareli Hernández Álvarez (2022, [Artículo])

"Differences in fish assemblages’ structures and their relations with environmental variables (due to the variations in sampled seasons, habitats, and zones) were analyzed in two adjacent estuaries on the north Pacific coast of Mexico. Environmental variables and fish catches were registered monthly between August 2018 and October 2020. Multivariate analyses were conducted to define habitats and zones based on their environmental characteristics, and the effect of this variability on fish assemblages’ composition, biomass, and diversity (α and β) was evaluated. A total of 12,008 fish individuals of 143 species were collected using different fishing nets. Multivariate analyses indicated that fish assemblages’ structures were different between zones due to the presence, height, and coverage of distinct mangrove species. Additionally, depth and salinity showed effects on fish assemblages’ diversity (α and β-nestedness), which presented higher values in the ocean and remained similar in the rest of the analyzed zones and habitats. These results and the differences in species replacement (β-turnover) indicate the singularity of fish assemblages at estuaries (even in areas close to the ocean) and the necessity to establish local management strategies for these ecosystems."

mangrove forests, marine protected areas, alpha diversity, beta diversity, multivariate analyses CIENCIAS AGROPECUARIAS Y BIOTECNOLOGÍA CIENCIAS AGRARIAS PECES Y FAUNA SILVESTRE DINÁMICA DE LAS POBLACIONES DINÁMICA DE LAS POBLACIONES

Enhancement of antibiotics antimicrobial activity due to the silver nanoparticles impact on the cell membrane

Roberto Vazquez-Munoz (2019, [Artículo])

The ability of microorganisms to generate resistance outcompetes with the generation of new and efficient antibiotics; therefore, it is critical to develop novel antibiotic agents and treatments to control bacterial infections. An alternative to this worldwide problem is the use of nanomaterials with antimicrobial properties. Silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) have been extensively studied due to their antimicrobial effect in different organisms. In this work, the synergistic antimicrobial effect of AgNPs and conventional antibiotics was assessed in Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria. AgNPs minimal inhibitory concentration was 10–12 μg mL-1 in all bacterial strains tested, regardless of their different susceptibility against antibiotics. Interestingly, a synergistic antimicrobial effect was observed when combining AgNPs and kanamycin according to the fractional inhibitory concentration index, FICI: <0.5), an additive effect by combining AgNPs and chloramphenicol (FICI: 0.5 to 1), whereas no effect was found with AgNPs and β-lactam antibiotics combinations. Flow cytometry and TEM analysis showed that sublethal concentrations of AgNPs (6–7 μg mL-1) altered the bacterial membrane potential and caused ultrastructural damage, increasing the cell membrane permeability. No chemical interactions between AgNPs and antibiotics were detected. We propose an experimental supported mechanism of action by which combinatorial effect of antimicrobials drives synergy depending on their specific target, facilitated by membrane alterations generated by AgNPs. Our results provide a deeper understanding about the synergistic mechanism of AgNPs and antibiotics, aiming to combat antimicrobial infections efficiently, especially those by multi-drug resistant microorganisms, in order to mitigate the current crisis due to antibiotic resistance. © 2019 Vazquez-Muñoz et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ampicillin, antibiotic agent, aztreonam, beta lactam antibiotic, biapenem, chloramphenicol, kanamycin, silver nanoparticle, silver nitrate, antiinfective agent, metal nanoparticle, silver, antibiotic sensitivity, antimicrobial activity, Article, bact BIOLOGÍA Y QUÍMICA CIENCIAS DE LA VIDA BIOFÍSICA BIOFÍSICA