Antioxidants are compounds that inhibit oxidation, a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals. Autoxidation leads to degradation of organic compounds, including living matter. Antioxidants are frequently added to industrial products, such as polymers, fuels, and lubricants, to extend their useable lifetimes. Food are also treated with antioxidants to forestall spoilage, in particular the rancidification of oils and fats. In cells, antioxidants such as glutathione, mycothiol or bacillithiol, and enzyme systems like superoxide dismutase, can prevent damage from oxidative stress.
A preservative is a substance or a chemical that is added to products such as food products, beverages, pharmaceutical drugs, paints, biological samples, cosmetics, wood, and many other products to prevent decomposition by microbial growth or by undesirable chemical changes. In general, preservation is implemented in two modes, chemical and physical. Chemical preservation entails adding chemical compounds to the product. Physical preservation entails processes such as refrigeration or drying. Preservative food additives reduce the risk of foodborne infections, decrease microbial spoilage, and preserve fresh attributes and nutritional quality. Some physical techniques for food preservation include dehydration, UV-C radiation, freeze-drying, and refrigeration. Chemical preservation and physical preservation techniques are sometimes combined.
The willow flycatcher is a small insect-eating, neotropical migrant bird of the tyrant flycatcher family. There are four subspecies of the willow flycatcher currently recognized, all of which breed in North America. Empidonax flycatchers are almost impossible to tell apart in the field so biologists use their songs to distinguish between them. The binomial commemorates the Scottish zoologist Thomas Stewart Traill.
The genus Tamarix is composed of about 50–60 species of flowering plants in the family Tamaricaceae, native to drier areas of Eurasia and Africa. The generic name originated in Latin and may refer to the Tamaris River in Hispania Tarraconensis (Spain).
A polyphenol antioxidant is a hypothetical type of antioxidant containing a polyphenolic substructure and studied in vitro. Numbering over 4,000 distinct species mostly from plants, polyphenols may have antioxidant activity in vitro, but are unlikely to be antioxidants in vivo. Hypothetically, they may affect cell-to-cell signaling, receptor sensitivity, inflammatory enzyme activity or gene regulation, although high-quality clinical research has not confirmed any of these possible effects in humans as of 2020.
Protocatechuic acid (PCA) is a dihydroxybenzoic acid, a type of phenolic acid. It is a major metabolite of antioxidant polyphenols found in green tea. It has mixed effects on normal and cancer cells in in vitro and in vivo studies.
Anthocyanins, also called anthocyans, are water-soluble vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart gave the name Anthokyan to a chemical compound that gives flowers a blue color for the first time in his treatise "Die Farben der Blüthen". Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. Some of the colors of autumn leaves are derived from anthocyanins.
Atriplex lentiformis is a species of saltbush.
Tamarix ramosissima, commonly known as saltcedarsalt cedar, or tamarisk, is a deciduous arching shrub with reddish stems, feathery, pale green foliage, and characteristic small pink flowers.
Diorhabda carinulata is a species of leaf beetle known as the northern tamarisk beetle, which feeds on tamarisk trees from southern Russia and Iran to Mongolia and western China. This beetle is used in North America as a biological pest control agent against saltcedar or tamarisk, an invasive species in arid and semiarid ecosystems.
Antirrhinin is an anthocyanin. It is the 3-rutinoside of cyanidin.
Clytie syriaca is a moth of the family Erebidae first described by Charles-Juste Bugnion in 1837. It is found along the coastal regions of the Mediterranean Basin, from the Balkans to Turkey, Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
Tamarix chinensis is a species of tamarisk known by the common names five-stamen tamarisk and Chinese tamarisk or saltcedar. It is native to China and Korea, and it is known in many other parts of the world as an introduced species and sometimes an invasive noxious weed. It easily inhabits moist habitat with saline soils. It may grow as a tree with a single trunk or as a shrub with several spreading erect branches reaching 6 metres or more in maximum height. It has been known to reach 12 metres. It has reddish, brown, or black bark. The small, multibranched twigs are covered in small lance-shaped, scale-like leaves which are no more than about 3 mm long. The inflorescence is a dense raceme of flowers a few cm long. Each fragrant flower has five petals which are usually pink but range from white to red.
Agdistis tamaricis is a moth of the family Pterophoridae found in Africa, Asia and Europe. It was first described by the German entomologist, Philipp Christoph Zeller in 1847.
Deserticossus arenicola is a species of moth of the family Cossidae. It is found in Russia (Dagestan), Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, north-western China, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt (Sinai) and Jordan.
Liocleonus clathratus is a species of cylindrical weevils belonging to the family Curculionidae.
Teleiodes excentricella is a moth of the family Gelechiidae. It is found in Libya, Armenia and Turkmenistan.
Pontibacter brevis is a Gram-negative bacterium from the genus of Pontibacter which has been isolated from rhizospheric soil from the plant Tamarix ramosissima.
Anna Amelia Sher is an American plant ecologist who is a professor at the University of Denver. She works on conservation and the restoration of areas invaded by Tamarix. She is the author of two textbooks, Ecology:Concepts and Applications and Introduction to conservation biology.
