Microcystin Lr [FITC]

Alerce (Fitzroya cupressoides (Mol.) Johnst.) and Guaitecas cypress (Pilgerodendron uviferum (Don) Florin) are two of the three closely-related species of conifers in the Cupressaceae that are endemic to southern Chile and Argentina. Both are listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Fauna and Flora (CITES). The presence or absence of nodular (conspicuously pitted) end walls in the parenchyma cells provide good diagnostic characters to separate the two species wood anatomically, but the latter is sometimes difficult to distinguish. Therefore, a collaborative project was designed to study the chemical-molecular expression of these species by analyzing the heartwood using DART TOFMS (Direct Analysis in Real-Time (DART) Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometry (TOFMS). This study compares the anatomical features of heartwood for both species and demonstrates that anatomy in conjunction with chemistry can separate them. DART TOFMS analysis combined with PCA was able to unequivocally determine taxonomic source with a statistical certainty of 99%. The mass spectra results obtained from heartwood demonstrated that identification is feasible after a few seconds, using a very small sample. DART TOFMS is a robust tool for reliable species identification and is useful to identify the taxonomic source of finished products or timber that are suspected of being illegally harvested.

The setting of Alissa York's 2010 novel Fauna, in the Don Valley and its adjacent neighbourhoods of Leslieville and Riverdale, provides a context for the theme of the persistence of life in the midst of waste and destruction. The realist setting of Fauna demonstrates the way the novel values the local and its specific characteristics, and in doing so suggests the way it seeks to reconcile the opposition identified by Susie O'Brien between ecocritical and post-colonial perspectives in contemporary fiction. At once biocentric, multicultural, and urban, the Don Valley setting undermines the discourses of "'natural' belonging that are seen to smack dangerously of colonialist forms of essentialism" because its history as a reclaimed habitat ("naturalized" rather than restored) acknowledges that it is a constructed space rather than a natural wilderness. The novel's shifting narrative perspective includes animal perspectives along with human and reinforces their interconnection, raising the dodgy question of animal subjectivity and entering into dialogue with the genre of the animal story. But rather than projecting human subjectivity onto animals, Fauna makes an ethical choice to recognize the bodily specificity and precarity that humans and animals share. The flourishing of animal and plant life in the "naturalized" Don Valley provides companionship and recognition for the human characters in the novel who frequent the valley in their struggle to overcome trauma, loss, and abuse.