Some wild fruits from amazon biodiversity: composition, bioactive compounds, and characteristics

Brazil is one of the countries that share a part of the Amazon region that has been called Legal Amazon. Amazon forest offers the most extraordinary biodiversity of flora and fauna on the planet and, on its surface, can cohabit 50% of the total existing living species. According to some botanists, it would contain about 16-20% of the species that exist today. This region has native fruits with antioxidants and antiproliferative activities already reported by some authors. Consumption of these fruits would be an alternative because they are good sources of nutritional constituents, such as minerals, fibre, vitamins, water, and caloric content. However, the number of scientific studies related to their health benefits is still low. Eugenia stipitata, Myrciaria dubia H. B. K. (Mcvough), Endopleura uchi (Huber) Cuatrecasas, Eugenia punicifolia (Kunth) D.C and Garcinia madruno. Among the main compounds reported are the most interesting groups: phenolic compounds, unsaturated fatty acids, carotenoids, phytosterols, and tocopherols, flavonoids, vitamin B, vitamin A, and vitamin C, and carotenoids. The main beneficial effect of the Amazon fruits is the antioxidant effect; other functional properties as medicinal, antimicrobial, antimutagenic, antigenotoxic, antigenotoxic, and antiinflammatory, antinociceptive, antidiabetic, and gastroprotective, are also reported. Therefore, these fruits can be considered a valuable source of functional foods due to their phytochemical compositions and their corresponding antioxidant activities.

Amazon Creative Labs of the Cupuaçu-Cocoa Chain

Under the Amazon Third Way paradigm and its implementation strategy Amazon 4.0 the Amazon Creative Labs (ACL) were conceived, as a tool for training and for testing proposed concepts. Amazon 4.0 is an attempt to show that it is possible to achieve a stage of high human development combined with valuing of tropical forest through knowledge. This study demonstrates how to add value to value chains of the immense Amazon biodiversity and how to enable Amazonian populations to master bio-industrialization technologies of forest assets. The following example deals with the potential to develop bio-industries in the value chain of two forest products with high potential: cupuaçu and cocoa through the development of the so-called ACL. This will serve as an important experiment to guide several proposals being elaborated by the Scientific Panel for the Amazon.

Effect of Mineral Supplementation on the Macromineral Concentration in Blood in Pre- and Postpartum Blackbelly Sheep

The objective of this study was to determine the effect of mineral supplementation on the serum concentration of calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium in pre- and postpartum Blackbelly sheep throughout three successive lambing periods under free grazing conditions in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region. The field work was carried out between January 2015 and February 2018 using 20 Blackbelly sheep belonging to the Centre for Research, Postgraduate Studies and Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, Ecuador. The flock was randomly divided into two groups: Group 1 (G1) was fed with forage plus a supplementation (Pecutrin® Mineral supplement plus vitamins A, D3, and E. Bayer HealthCare) and Group 2 (G2) was fed only with forage without mineral supplementation. Three blood samples from the coccygeal vein were taken from each sheep 30 days before lambing, 30 days after, and 60 days after lambing. Concerning the average of calcium, significant differences were found at different times inside each group and also between them (p < 0.0001 in both cases). As for the phosphorus, significant differences were found between the means of the groups for all times from 30 days after the second lambing season (p < 0.05). It was observed that the groups differed significantly in terms on the average of magnesium (considering a significance level of 0.05) 30 days before the first lambing and at all times measured from the 30 days after the second lambing (p < 0.005). In this study, we showed that Blackbelly sheep raised under free grazing conditions in the Ecuadorian Amazon Region had very low serum calcium values, and supplementation was unable to improve them. Meanwhile, phosphorus and magnesium levels were below the required values, but after supplementation, they exceeded the minimum threshold. Mineral supplementation in the rearing of sheep in grazing systems is necessary during the entire production cycle, but it must be done taking into account the soil–plant–animal relationship specifically for the Amazonian Region systems.