BACKGROUND This study evaluated local knowledge of the fodder plants of the Caatinga in northeast Brazil (seasonal dry forest). Specifically, the goal was to catalog local knowledge regarding the use of native and exotic forage plants in two rural communities located in the state of Paraíba (northeast Brazil), to provide information for nutritional investigations and to verify how the knowledge...

We prove that the smallest degree of an apolar 0-dimensional scheme of a general cubic form in n+1 variables is at most 2n+2, when n ≥ 8, and therefore smaller than the rank of the form. For the general reducible cubic form the smallest degree of an apolar subscheme is n+ 2, while the rank is at least 2n.

Cereus peruvianus (Cactaceae) is an important medical plant. The study was carried out on callus induction of Cereus jamacaru f. monstrosus and Cereus hildmannianus fma monstrosa (Cereus peruvianus). Apical and lateral explants were cultured on Murashige and Skoog media with factorial combinations of the auxins indole-3acetic acid (NAA), 2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and N-(2-furanyl-...

Several taxa of Cactaceae are endangered by overcollection for commercial purposes, and most of the family is included in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). Micropropagation may play a key role to keep the pressure off wild populations and contribute to ex situ conservation of endangered taxa. One of the limits of micropropagation is the spec...

Primary roots of two species of Sonoran Desert Cactaceae, Stenocereus gummosus and Pachycereus pringlei, have a determinate pattern of growth: meristematic cells divide only for a limited time and then differentiate. Detecting DNA fragmentation by terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL), we have shown that programmed cell death (PCD) was not involved in meri...

The cacti have undergone extensive specialization in their evolutionary history, providing an excellent system in which to address large-scale questions of morphological and physiological adaptation. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies suggest that (1) Pereskia, the leafy genus long interpreted as the sister group of all other cacti, is likely paraphyletic, and (2) Cactaceae are nested within...