Potential distribution of fall armyworm in Africa and beyond, considering climate change and irrigation patterns

The fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (FAW), first invaded Africa in 2016 and has since become established in many areas across the continent where it poses a serious threat to food and nutrition security. We re-parameterized the existing CLIMEX model to assess the FAW global invasion threat, emphasizing the risk of transient and permanent population establishment in Africa under current and projected future climates, considering irrigation patterns. FAW can establish itself in almost all countries in eastern and central Africa and a large part of western Africa under the current climate. Climatic barriers, such as heat and dry stresses, may limit the spread of FAW to North and South Africa. Future projections suggest that FAW invasive range will retract from both northern and southern regions towards the equator. However, a large area in eastern and central Africa is projected to have an optimal climate for FAW persistence. These areas will serve as FAW ‘hotspots’ from where it may migrate to the north and south during favorable seasons and then pose an economic threat. Our projections can be used to identify countries at risk for permanent and transient FAW-population establishment and inform timely integrated pest management interventions under present and future climate in Africa.

Safety and immunogenicity of 2-dose heterologous Ad26.ZEBOV, MVA-BN-Filo Ebola vaccination in children and adolescents in Africa: A randomised, placebo-controlled, multicentre Phase II clinical trial

Background Reoccurring Ebola outbreaks in West and Central Africa have led to serious illness and death in thousands of adults and children. The objective of this study was to assess safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the heterologous 2-dose Ad26.ZEBOV, MVA-BN-Filo vaccination regimen in adolescents and children in Africa. Methods and findings In this multicentre, randomised, observer-blind, placebo-controlled Phase II study, 131 adolescents (12 to 17 years old) and 132 children (4 to 11 years old) were enrolled from Eastern and Western Africa and randomised 5:1 to receive study vaccines or placebo. Vaccine groups received intramuscular injections of Ad26.ZEBOV (5 × 1010 viral particles) and MVA-BN-Filo (1 × 108 infectious units) 28 or 56 days apart; placebo recipients received saline. Primary outcomes were safety and tolerability. Solicited adverse events (AEs) were recorded until 7 days after each vaccination and serious AEs (SAEs) throughout the study. Secondary and exploratory outcomes were humoral immune responses (binding and neutralising Ebola virus [EBOV] glycoprotein [GP]-specific antibodies), up to 1 year after the first dose. Enrolment began on February 26, 2016, and the date of last participant last visit was November 28, 2018. Of the 263 participants enrolled, 217 (109 adolescents, 108 children) received the 2-dose regimen, and 43 (20 adolescents, 23 children) received 2 placebo doses. Median age was 14.0 (range 11 to 17) and 7.0 (range 4 to 11) years for adolescents and children, respectively. Fifty-four percent of the adolescents and 51% of the children were male. All participants were Africans, and, although there was a slight male preponderance overall, the groups were well balanced. No vaccine-related SAEs were reported; solicited AEs were mostly mild/moderate. Twenty-one days post-MVA-BN-Filo vaccination, binding antibody responses against EBOV GP were observed in 100% of vaccinees (106 adolescents, 104 children). Geometric mean concentrations tended to be higher after the 56-day interval (adolescents 13,532 ELISA units [EU]/mL, children 17,388 EU/mL) than the 28-day interval (adolescents 6,993 EU/mL, children 8,007 EU/mL). Humoral responses persisted at least up to Day 365. A limitation of the study is that the follow-up period was limited to 365 days for the majority of the participants, and so it was not possible to determine whether immune responses persisted beyond this time period. Additionally, formal statistical comparisons were not preplanned but were only performed post hoc. Conclusions The heterologous 2-dose vaccination was well tolerated in African adolescents and children with no vaccine-related SAEs. All vaccinees displayed anti-EBOV GP antibodies after the 2-dose regimen, with higher responses in the 56-day interval groups. The frequency of pyrexia after vaccine or placebo was higher in children than in adolescents. These data supported the prophylactic indication against EBOV disease in a paediatric population, as licenced in the EU. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02564523.

مسيرة انتشار الإسلام في غرب أفريقيا

مسيرة انتشار الإسلام في غرب أفريقيا The research studies the long journey of the spread of Islam in western Africa and the problems that faced its peaceful penetration in it .These problems were relating mainly to the ways and means adopted in spreading Islam. They were the strong links that tied Africans to their environment and the deeply rooted traditions. The research detects the movement of spreading Islam since its commencement in the Vth century until the advent of the European colonization in the century describing the routes and the people who took part in that peaceful movement . The research tackles the allegations raised by some European writers accusing Muslims of enforcing their religion by sword, the hateful slave trade and not contributing in developing the content .However, the research proved that those allegations were non-objective and false .They can only be read within the context of the colonial policy to convert African to Christianity .Indeed, they were an echo of the Medieval Crusades against Islam which has provided a better choice of culture for the Africans

A new genus of the tribe Rhinocartini (Coleoptera, Rhynchitidae) from the Solomon Islands

A new genus, Solomonocartus Legalov, gen. nov., with a new species Solomonocartus bukejsi Legalov, sp. nov. belongs to the tribe Rhinocartini from Guadalcanal Island (Solomon Islands) is described and illustrated. This new genus differs from the genus Rhinocartus Voss, 1922 from Western Africa in the long antennae inserted in the basal third of the rostrum and almost reaching the middle of the elytra, almost straight sides of the pronotum, long ventrite 2, and larger body sizes. It is the first record of the tribe Rhinocartini from the South Pacific and the second find of Rhynchitidae from the Solomon Islands.

A complete view of the atmospheric hydrologic cycle

The global atmospheric water transport from the evaporation to the precipitation regions has been traced using Lagrangian trajectories. A matrix has been constructed by selecting various group of trajectories based on their surface starting(evaporation) and ending (precipitation) positions to show the connectivity of the atmospheric water transport within and between the three major ocean basins and the global landmass. The analysis reveals that a major portion of the evaporated water precipitates back into the same region, namely 67 % for the Indian, 64 % for the Atlantic, 85 % for the Pacific Ocean and 72 % for the global landmass. The evaporation from the subtropical regions of the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans is found to be the primary source of atmospheric water for precipitation over the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) in the corresponding basins. The evaporated waters from the subtropical and western Indian Ocean were traced as the source for precipitation over the South Asian and Eastern African landmass, while Atlantic Ocean waters are responsible for rainfall over North Asia and Western Africa. Atlantic storm tracks were identified as the carrier of atmospheric water that precipitates over Europe, while the Pacific storm tracks were responsible for North American, eastern Asian and Australian precipitation. The bulk of South and Central American precipitation is found to have its source in the tropical Atlantic Ocean. The recycling of evapotranspirated water from land is pronounced over the western coast of South America, Northeastern Asia, Canada and Greenland. The ocean-to-land and land-to-ocean water transport through the atmosphere was computed to be 2 × 109 kg/s and 1 × 109 kg/s, respectively. The difference between them (net ocean-to-land transport), i.e. 1 × 109 kg/s, is transported to land. This net transport is approximately the same as found in previous Eulerian estimates.

Increased Flooded Area and Exposure in the White Volta River Basin in Western Africa, Identified From Multi-source Remote Sensing Data

Accurate information on flood extent and exposure is critical for disaster management in data-scarce, vulnerable regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). However, uncertainties in flood extent affect flood exposure estimates. This study developed a framework to examine the spatiotemporal pattern of floods and to assess flood exposure through utilization of satellite images, ground-based participatory mapping of flood extent, and socio-economic data. Drawing on a case study in the White Volta basin in Western Africa, our results showed that synergetic use of multi-temporal radar and optical satellite data improved flood mapping accuracy (77% overall agreement with participatory mapping outputs), in comparison with existing global flood datasets (43% overall agreement for the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) Near Real-Time (NRT) Global Flood Product). Increases in flood extent were observed according to our classified product, as well as two existing global flood products. Flood exposure estimates remain highly uncertain and sensitive to the input dataset used, with the greatest farmland and infrastructure exposure estimated using a composite flood map derived from three products, with lower exposure estimated from each flood product individually. While population exposure varied greatly depending on the population dataset used. The study shows that there is considerable scope to develop an accurate flood mapping system in SSA and thereby improve flood exposure assessment and develop mitigation and intervention plans.

Potential Biodiversity Connectivity in the Network of Marine Protected Areas in Western Africa

Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) must function as networks with sufficient stepping-stone continuity between suitable habitats to ensure the conservation of naturally connected regional pools of biodiversity in the long-term. For most marine biodiversity, population connectivity is mediated by passively dispersed planktonic stages with contrasting dispersal periods, ranging from a few hours to hundreds of days. These processes exert a major influence on whether threatened populations should be conserved as either isolated units or linked metapopulations. However, the distance scales at which individual MPAs are connected are insufficiently understood. Here, we use a biophysical model integrating high-resolution ocean currents and contrasting dispersal periods to predict connectivity across the Network of MPAs in Western Africa. Our results revealed that connectivity differs sharply among distinct ecological groups, from highly connected (e.g., fish and crustacea) to predominantly isolated ecosystem structuring species (e.g., corals, macroalgae and seagrass) that might potentially undermine conservation efforts because they are the feeding or nursery habitats required by many other species. Regardless of their dispersal duration, all ecological groups showed a common connectivity gap in the Bijagós region of Guinea-Bissau, highlighting the important role of MPAs there and the need to further support and increase MPA coverage to ensure connectivity along the whole network. Our findings provide key insights for the future management of the Network of MPAs in Western Africa, highlighting the need to protect and ensure continuity of isolated ecosystem structuring species and identifying key regions that function as stepping-stone connectivity corridors.

Projecting armed conflict risk in Africa towards 2050 along the SSP-RCP scenarios: a machine learning approach

In the past decade, several efforts have been made to project armed conflict risk into the future. This study broadens current approaches by presenting a first-of-its-kind application of machine learning (ML) methods to project sub-national armed conflict risk over the African continent along three Shared Socioeconomic Pathway (SSP) scenarios and three Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) towards 2050. Results of the open-source ML framework CoPro are consistent with the underlying socioeconomic storylines of the SSPs, and the resulting out-of-sample armed conflict projections obtained with Random Forest classifiers agree with the patterns observed in comparable studies. In SSP1-RCP2.6, conflict risk is low in most regions although the Horn of Africa and parts of East Africa continue to be conflict-prone. Conflict risk increases in the more adverse SSP3-RCP6.0 scenario, especially in Central Africa and large parts of Western Africa. We specifically assessed the role of hydro-climatic indicators as drivers of armed conflict. Overall, their importance is limited compared to main conflict predictors but results suggest that changing climatic conditions may both increase and decrease conflict risk, depending on the location: in Northern Africa and large parts of Eastern Africa climate change increases projected conflict risk whereas for areas in the West and northern part of the Sahel shifting climatic conditions may reduce conflict risk. With our study being at the forefront of machine learning (ML) applications for conflict risk projections, we identify various challenges for this arising scientific field. A major concern is the limited selection of relevant quantified indicators for the SSPs at present. Nevertheless, ML models such as the one presented here are a viable and scalable way forward in the field of armed conflict risk projections, and can help to inform the policy-making process with respect to climate security.