Characterization of sand fly breeding sites in district Malakand,Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,Pakistan, and evaluation of risk factors for cutaneous leishmaniasis in the region     

Khurshaid Khan  Nazma Habib Khan  Farhat Anwar  Ihtisham Ullah  Noor Badshah  Irfan Irfan  Khalid Iqbal  Ibrar Shah  Shah Tariq Aziz  Muhammad Shahid Naseem Khan  Safeer Ullah Shah 《Zoonoses and public health》2022,69(1):33-45

Present study was carried to determine the sand fly species composition, breeding sites ecology, seasonal abundance, and spatial distribution in district Malakand, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. In addition, risk factors associated with cutaneous leishmaniasis (CL) were also evaluated. Survey of indoor and outdoor habitats was carried out using sticky traps in 31 villages of Dargai and Batkhela tehsils of Malakand. Soil from habitats of adult and immature sand flies was analysed. Questionnaire-based household survey was also performed in these villages to assess risk factors associated with CL. Soil samples from selected CL positive households were analysed for its contents. Additionally, clinicoepidemiological data from local health centres was examined for the year 2019. Total of 3,140 sand flies belonging to 18 species were collected. Phlebotomus sergenti was the most abundant species (38.16%). Its abundance had a strong positive correlation with mean monthly relative humidity and negative correlation with average temperature. Phlebotomus sergenti and Phlebotomus papatasi were abundant at an elevation ranging from 320 to 1,120 m above sea level and in agricultural lands near human settlements. Flight height preference apparatus collected maximum sand flies at 30 cm (1ft) above the ground and all species associated negatively with height. Soil analysis from habitats of adult and immature flies showed that highest mean number of adults and immatures were recorded from silt loam which carried highest concentrations of K₂O, Mg, Ca, and Zn. Number of immature sand flies correlated moderately (r = .7, p < .05) with K₂O soil concentrations. There was significant similarity between organic matter contents in soil samples from positive breeding sites and CL households (Wilcoxon rank-sum test, p = .1976). In multivariate analysis model for CL risk factors, age (26–35 and >35 years), knowledge of leishmaniasis, living in a middle and upper class, preachers visit to villages, and assumption that Afghan refugees are more prone to CL were significant. CL patient's archived data from health centres showed that majority of patients had lesions on face and hands. Patient's influx was highest in February and March.  相似文献   

Farm Level Tree Planting in Pakistan: The Role of Farmers’ Perceptions and Attitudes   总被引：1，自引：0，他引：1  

Muhammad Zubair  Chris Garforth 《Agroforestry Systems》2006,66(3):217-229

The low proportion of forested land and continuing degradation of existing forest cover are serious threats to the sustainability of forestry in Pakistan. Farm forestry has been identified as a feasible solution, particularly in the plain areas. Applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour in a survey of 124 farmers in Dera Ismail Khan district of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province showed that farmers’ willingness to grow trees on their farms is a function of their attitudes towards the advantages and disadvantages of growing trees, their perception of the opinions of salient referents and factors that encourage and discourage farm level tree planting. Farmers viewed farm forestry as economically beneficial and environmentally friendly. Tree planting was perceived as increasing income, providing wood for fuel and furniture, controlling erosion and pollution and providing shade for humans and animals. Farmers saw hindrance in agricultural operations and the harbouring of insects, pests and diseases as negative impacts of tree planting; however, these were outweighed by their perceptions of positive impacts. Tree growing decisions of farmers were influenced by the opinions of family members, owners/tenants, fellow farmers and village elders. The factors that significantly predicted farm level tree planting were availability of barren land, lack of markets, lack of nurseries and damage caused by animals and humans. Farm forestry programmes are more likely to be successful if they acknowledge and address the factors which underlie farmers’ reasons for planting or not planting trees.  相似文献   

Depth Distribution of Soil Organic Carbon Fractions in Relation to Tillage and Cropping Sequences in Some Dry Lands of Punjab,Pakistan     

Asma Hassan  Shahzada Sohail Ijaz  Rattan Lal  Safdar Ali  Qaiser Hussain  Muhammad Ansar  Romaan Hayat Khattak  Muhammad Sharif Baloch 《Land Degradation \u0026amp; Development》2016,27(4):1175-1185

Depth distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) fractions depends on the efficiency of agro‐technical managements. Information on depth distribution of SOC fractions mostly confined to the plow layer and scant in dry lands of Punjab, Pakistan. Therefore, a field experiment was laid out with moldboard plow (MP) (control), tine cultivator (TC), and minimum tillage (MT) as main plots, and cropping sequences fallow wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), (FW, control), mungbean (Vigna radiata L.) wheat (MW), sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.) wheat (SW), green manure wheat (GW), and mungbean‐chickpea (MC) (Cicer arietinum L.) as sub‐plots. Treatment effects were assessed for microbial biomass carbon (MBC), potentially mineralizeable carbon (PMC), particulate organic carbon (POC), dissolved organic carbon (DOC), HCl insoluble carbon (HIC), and stratification ratio (SR) in Rawal series: Udic Haplustalf. Alfisols. The MBC concentration was the highest in MT system, at 15 to 30‐cm depth under MW and PMC concentration was highest under SW with MT at 45–60 cm. MP had higher POC in FW sequence. The highest DOC was at 0 to 15‐cm depth under MC with TC and stock of HIC was more under TC with FW sequence. The highest SR of PMC was under MT with FW at 0–15:15–30 and POC was under TC and MP with FW at depths of 0–15:45–60 cm. The highest SR for DOC was under MP with GW at 0–15:45–60 cm and HCl insoluble C was under MT with SW at 0–15:45–60. In broad‐spectrum, labile organic fractions revealed differential sensitivity, and POC stocks are also a sensitive indicator to detect the short‐management effects. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.  相似文献   

A statistical algorithm for comparing mode shapes of vibration testing before and after damage in timbers   总被引：3，自引：0，他引：3  

Chuanshuang Hu  Muhammad T. Afzal 《Journal of Wood Science》2006,52(4):348-352

Instances of local damage in timber such as knots, decay, and cracks can be translated into a reduction of service life due to mechanical and environmental loadings. In wood construction, it is very important to evaluate the weakest location and to detect damage at the earliest possible stage to avoid future catastrophic failure. In this study, modal testing was used on wood beams to generate the first two mode shapes. A novel statistical algorithm was proposed to extract a damage indicator by computing mode shapes of vibration testing before and after damage in timbers. The different damage severities, damage locations, and damage counts were simulated by removing mass from intact beams to verify the algorithm. The results showed that the proposed statistical algorithm is effective and suitable for the designed damage scenarios. It is reliable for the detection and location of local damage of different severities, location, and number. The peak values of the damage indicators computed from the first two mode shapes were sensitive to different damage severities and locations. They were also reliable for the detection of multiple cases of damage.  相似文献   

Efficacy of entomopathogenic fungi,nematodes and spinetoram combinations for integrated management of Thrips tabaci     

Waqas Wakil  Sehrish Gulzar  Sean Michael Prager  Muhammad Usman Ghazanfar  David I Shapiro-Ilan 《Pest management science》2023,79(9):3227-3238

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The importance of alternative host plants as reservoirs of the cotton leaf hopper,Amrasca devastans,and its natural enemies     

Rabia Saeed  Muhammad Razaq  Ian C. W. Hardy 《Journal of pest science》2015,88(3):517-531

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Compost and P amendments for stimulating microorganisms and maize growth in a saline soil from Pakistan in comparison with a nonsaline soil from Germany     

Sher Muhammad  Torsten Müller  Rainer Georg Joergensen 《植物养料与土壤学杂志》2007,170(6):745-752

A 92 d greenhouse pot experiment with maize (Zea mays L.) was carried out with a strongly saline soil from Pakistan (P‐s) in comparison with a nonsaline soil from Germany (G‐s) similar in pH and texture. The aim was to evaluate salinity effects on the decomposition of compost and effects of compost and P amendments on (1) plant growth and (2) microbial‐biomass formation. The yield of maize shoot‐C and root‐C increased in both soils in the order nonamended control < +triple superphosphate (TSP) (A1) < +compost (A2) < +(compost + TSP) (A3) < +TSP‐enriched compost (A4). In comparison with the control, the highest yield in treatment A4 was nearly doubled on the G‐s, but was increased more than 8‐fold on the saline P‐s. Averaging the three compost treatments, 32% of the compost added was decomposed in the German soil and 36% in the Pakistani soil on the basis of the compost recovered as particulate organic matter. These data were roughly in agreement with the CO₂‐evolution data. This indicates that the decomposition of compost was not affected by salinity. Compost‐derived CO₂ was mainly evolved until day 32, the root‐derived CO₂ from day 74 until the end of the experiment. The addition of compost resulted in higher contents of microbial biomass C and biomass P, but also in that of NaHCO₃‐extractable P. These three properties were significantly interrelated (r = 0.64–0.85), but on a lower level of significance than the relationships between shoot‐C, root‐C, and NaHCO₃‐extractable P (r = 0.90–0.93). Applying compost enriched with TSP (incubation of compost and TSP for 24 h) provided considerably more P to plants and microorganisms than the separate addition of these two components. The results suggest that the role of the microbial biomass as a sink and source for available P deserves further attention.  相似文献   

Genetic variability in bread wheat (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Triticum aestivum</Emphasis> L.) of Pakistan based on polymorphism for high molecular weight glutenin subunits     

Tayyaba Sultana  Abdul Ghafoor  Muhammad Ashraf 《Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution》2007,54(6):1159-1165

Variation in bread wheat including pre and post green revolutions varieties of Pakistan along with landraces was investigated for high molecular weight Glutenin subunits (HMW Gs) encoded at three genes (Glu-A1, Glu-B1, Glu-D1) with SDS-PAGE. The germplasm was diverse and unique on the basis of HMW Gs compositions and out of 14 alleles detected at all the Glu-1 loci, three belonged to Glu-A1, nine to Glu-B1 and two to Glu-D1 locus. High variation was observed in the landraces and higher gene diversity was observed between the populations as compared to the gene diversity within populations, whereas a reverse pattern of gene diversity was observed when populations were pooled across the region (higher within the regions than between the regions). A lack of relationship between the HMW Gs diversity and the altitude of collection site was observed. A data base has been generated in this study which could be expanded/exploited for cultivar development or management of gene bank.  相似文献   

Growth-related changes in wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) genotypes grown under salinity stress     

Muhammad Shahzad  Zulfiqar A. Saqib  Farhan Hafeez  Muhammad Bilal  Sabaz A. Khan  Saeed A. Asad 《Journal of plant nutrition》2016,39(9):1257-1265

The sensitivity of crop genotypes determines the level of growth reduction by salinity. Effect of salinity levels (7.5 and 15 dihydrate m^?1) using completely randomized design (CRD) with four replications per treatment were compared on germination, chlorophyll content, water potential, ionic sodium and potassium (Na⁺, K⁺) balance, and other growth-related parameters of six wheat genotypes for varietal differences under long-term salinity stress. Chlorophyll contents at flowering stage and yield aspects at maturity of all the wheat genotypes decreased with increasing salinity. The maximum Na⁺ concentration was observed at 7.5 and 15 dS m^?1 in Bhakhar and Saher-2000, respectively, while minimum Na⁺ concentration was observed for 9476. However, the maximum K⁺ concentration and water potential was noticed in 9476 at 7.5 dS m^?1. Careful selection of salt-tolerant genotypes for field crops is an important perspective especially in the developing countries facing salinity problem. Our results revealed that the wheat genotype 9476 performed best regarding growth and physiological parameters compared to other wheat genotypes.  相似文献   

Effect of Substrate Dependent Ethylene on Cotton (Gossypium hirsutum L.) at Physiological and Molecular Levels Under Salinity Stress     

Zulfiqar Ahmad  Shermeen Tahir  Abdul Rehman  Nabeel Khan Niazi  Muhammad Abid  Muhammad Amanullah 《Journal of plant nutrition》2015,38(12):1913-1928

The potential of encapsulated calcium carbide (ECC) in improving growth, yield and physiology of cotton under salinity was evaluated in pot experiment. Salinity was induced by sodium chloride (NaCl) at 0, 1250 and 2000 ppm. The ECC was applied at the rate of 0, 15, and 30 mg kg^?1 soil. The results revealed that ECC improved number of branches, yield, shoot dry biomass, root dry biomass, by 57, 67, 40, 22, and 18% respectively, over control. Similarly, net photosynthesis, stomatal conductance nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (N, P and K) concentration of shoot were enhanced by 38, 34, 7, 25 and 11% over control, respectively. The induction of new set of proteins ranging from 11 to 26 kDa was also observed at various levels of ECC and salinity stress. These results proved the efficacy of very lower concentrations of ethylene produced by ECC and showed the behavior of different parameters of cotton to it under saline stress.  相似文献