Domestic poultry are important natural hosts of Mycobacterium avium (MAC), especially in the traditional poultry management system in the tropics. Qualitative and quantitative studies on a total of 95 chickens from three agro-climatic areas in Ethiopia were examined for avian mycobacteriosis through postmortem examinations and tissue staining (haematoxylin & eosin and acid-fast staining). The mycobacteria species were isolated and identified by using mycobacteriologic culture and experimental infection for virulence assessment. Five of the 95 examined chickens (5.3%) had gross tuberculous lesions in different visceral organs. On histopathologic examination, the lesions showed granuloma with typical Langhan’s giant cells in which acid-fast bacilli were shown by acid-fast stain. The culture on pyruvate-enriched Lowenstein-Jensen slants revealed growth of colonies on samples from 6 (6.3%) of the 95 chickens. Experimental infection with the strains from culture resulted in death of 10 (83.3%) of 12 inoculated chickens 56 to 110 days after inoculation, indicating that the isolates may be virulent strains of MAC. On postmortem examination, the experimentally infected chickens showed similar tuberculous lesions to natural infection that was confined at the site of injection, on the liver, spleen and (in two subjects) small intestine. The inoculated organisms were recovered from the respective organs. Therefore, this study showed that a virulent strain of MAC infects domestic chicken in Ethiopia.

In course of the realized investigation there was analyzed the dynamics of climatic resources of Belarusian Poozerye region (the Republic of Belarus) over the last 25 years. In course of he study there was analyzed the amount of effective yearly average temperatures of cultural landscapes of Belarusian Poozerye over 1998-2008. Also, there was presented the yearly average depth of precipitation in the analyzed area over 1984-2008. Results of 25-year studies over the climatic resources resulted the following: possibility of solution of a problem of plant productivity by means of concordance of physiological requirements of agricultural crops and the potential possibilities of cultural landscapes; notable increase of agroclimatic resources (increasing of amounts of active and effective yearly average temperatures; duration of vegetation period, etc.) requires the appropriate adaptation of cultivated agricultural crops; displacement of the northern border of the central agroclimatic region (isothermal curve 2000) to the north of the Belarusian Poozerye requires development of new approaches to management of this region; changes of growing conditions of agricultural crops requires specification of the existing technologies, scientific approaches to the specialization of the territory.