California Ag Network

Tag: UF/IFAS

  • Artificial Intelligence to Improve Quality & Quantity of Beef, Dairy

    For a century, researchers have tracked genetic traits to find out which cattle produce more and better milk and meat. Now, two University of Florida scientists will use artificial intelligence to analyze millions of bits of genetic data to try to keep cattle cooler and thus, more productive.

    Raluca Mateescu, a UF/IFAS professor, and Fernanda Rezende, a UF/IFAS assistant professor – both in animal sciences — gather hundreds of thousands of pieces of information about cattle genetic traits. They plan to use UF’s supercomputer, the HiPerGator, to analyze that data. With the information Mateescu and her team get from the HiPerGator, they can give ranchers better recommendations on which animals to keep and breed for improved quantity of beef and dairy.

    “AI has rapidly emerged as a powerful approach in animal genomics and holds great promise to integrate big data from multiple biological layers, leading to accurate prediction of future traits – for example, meat yield,” Mateescu said. “My research group is investigating the use of AI methods to develop approaches to accurately predict the value of certain genes. Ultimately, we plan to provide more effective strategies to improve animal productivity.”

    With 25.6 million head of cattle, dairy herds peaked in the United States in 1944. As of 2017, there were only 9 million, but they produce more milk. With fewer cattle producing more dairy and beef, the livestock industries are leaving a lower environmental footprint, such as methane emissions, Mateescu said.

    While all that is good, Mateescu knows she and other researchers can help ranchers improve cattle beef and dairy output. That’s where AI comes into play.

    “We know some of the specific genes for milk and meat production,” she said. “But we’re looking into a bit of a black box. AI will help us clear up the mystery faster and more accurately.”

    Livestock traits of economic importance — milk and meat yield, meat quality — are factors of both genetics and the environment. Mateescu can only control a cow’s environment to a certain degree. But she and other scientists can improve cattle genetically. There are thousands of genes in the cattle genome, and each gene contains thousands of different genetic markers.

    As an example of her team’s use of AI, Mateescu is processing genetic data from about 1,000 beef cattle. From that process, researchers have extracted data on 770,000 DNA genetic markers, more than 18,000 genes and 86 traits — on every animal. That’s way more data than any human can analyze and integrate.

    That’s why Mateescu and Rezende are using HiPerGator, the largest university-based supercomputer in the world. HiPerGator then tells the scientists what particular combination of genetic markers and genes will result in better animals – in other words, which ones will be cooler and thus, more productive.

    “AI allows us to use more information – the more information we have on an animal, the higher the accuracy of our prediction,” Mateescu said. “Given the complex genetic architecture, it is challenging for researchers to identify how these thousands of genetic markers and thousands of genes combine to produce the traits we see. AI can help researchers achieve that goal. We are just starting to use AI to address these problems.”

    About AI at UF

    The University of Florida is making artificial intelligence the centerpiece of a major, long-term initiative that combines world-class research infrastructure, cutting-edge research and a transformational approach to curriculum. UF is home the the most powerful, university-owned supercomputer in the nation, according to rankings just released by TOP500, contributing to innovative research and education opportunities. — By Brad Buck, University of Florida Institute of Food & Ag Sciences

  • Microbes Escape Wildland Fires on Smoke Particle ‘Life Rafts’

    Where there’s smoke, there’s fire — and also lots of microorganisms, according to a new study from the University of Florida.

    For the first time, researchers have measured the number of microbes in smoke from fires in wilderness areas, also known as wildland fires. The researchers also found that a surprisingly high percentage of microbes survive the blazes and are lofted into the air.

    Smoke analyzed for the study contained five times more microbes than smoke-free air, said Rachel Moore, a UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences graduate who led the study as part of her doctoral work.

    The researchers also found that the percentage of microbes still alive in the smoke was the same as that found in ambient air.

    “When you look at the smoke particles under a microscope, it’s as if the particles are life rafts for the microbes,” said Moore, who is now a postdoctoral researcher at Georgia Tech University. “Just how many microbes there were and how many were viable was a big surprise.”

    Brent Christner, Moore’s dissertation advisor and one of the authors of the study, said he was also surprised, but for an additional reason.

    Prescribed fire at the UF/IFAS Ordway-Swisher Biological Station.

    “Common sense would tell you that fire would just kill and incinerate microbes when it burns through vegetation, but our findings show that’s not the case,” said Christner, an associate professor in the UF/IFAS department of microbiology and cell science.

    Rachel Moore collecting smoke samples at the UF/IFAS Ordway-Swisher Biological Station.

    While smoke poses a health risk to people, the microbes identified in the study aren’t harmful to humans on their own.

    “The microbes released in these fires are similar to the kinds that live on plants. The results of this study indicate that fires may be an important way for these organisms to distribute in the environment, which is of ecological interest,” Christner said.

    How microbes survive wildland fires is still unclear.

    “The processes that aerosolize microbes during combustion of vegetation are clearly not as destructive as they’ve been presumed to be,” Christner said.

    For the study, researchers analyzed smoke sampled during eight prescribed fires at the UF/IFAS Ordway-Swisher Biological Station, located about 20 miles east of the university’s main campus in Gainesville. With thousands of acres of wilderness, the station is a living outdoor laboratory where scientists can do experiments in the natural environment.

    During each fire, Moore set up instruments called volumetric samplers downwind from the blaze. These machines sucked air and smoke from the fire through special filters that trapped the particles.

    “Think of the filter on your vacuum cleaner that traps dust. These machines are essentially powerful vacuums with very fine filters that catch particles as small as 1 micrometer,” Christner said. For context, the width of a human hair is about 75 micrometers.

    Smoke particles captured on filters.

    After sampling, Moore took the filters back to the lab, where she used various lab techniques to remove the particles from the filters and calculate the total number of microbes in the sample. She also used a special staining technique that makes living microbes appear green under the microscope, allowing her to estimate the percentage of viable organisms.

    Smoke particle “life raft” with microbes stained green. Credit Rachel Moore

    Moore and Christner also wanted to know if burning dead vegetation emitted more microbes than living vegetation. To find out, they teamed up with scientists at the Idaho Fire Initiative for Research and Education at the University of Idaho, who burned samples sent from Florida on a specially designed laboratory burn table. The researchers found that smoke from dead vegetation contained more microbes than smoke from living vegetation.

    The study’s authors note that the prescribed fire used in the experiment was far smaller and less intense than the massive wildfires that have burned millions of acres in the Western United States. over the last few months.

    “We think the huge fires out West are emitting even more microbes than what we found in our experiments,” Moore said.

    The study is published in “The International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal.” — By Samantha Murray, University of Florida Communications