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The dwarf honeybee (or red dwarf honeybee),Apis floreaFabricius, is native to Southeast Asia. The general distribution of this species is confined to warm climates where it performs very well. The study was carried out to assess the invasion, habitat and its negative effect on local honeybees in North West and Northern Ethiopia. Districts for the study were purposively selected. To undertake the assessment, three different techniques, interviewing local people, observing foraging bees on the field and searching for nests of the alien species were employed.Based on the study results, Metema could be the possible district to whichA. floreawas first introduced in 2003. Since then, this alienbee species has become widely distributed in the lowlands of north Gondar, and central and northern Tigray up to the Eritrean border. Indicating the rapid expansion and effective colonizing ability, they become well adapted to new hot arid conditions of North West and North Ethiopia without being affected by the competition from local honeybees,Apis mellifera. This natural expansion of the species may not have a pronounced negative effect at this time but may pose some threat to the local ecosystem in the future. Therefore, the rapid expansion of theA. floreainto new habitats has to be monitored and more detailed research is needed to understand their ecological impacts in the new ecosystem and potentially possible economic advantages and disadvantages.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are important public health problems in Ethiopia. In 2013, the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) has launched a national NTD master plan to eliminate major NTDs of public health importance by 2020. Benchmarking the current status of NTDs in the country is important to monitor and evaluate the progress in the implementation of interventions and their impacts. Therefore, this study aims to assess the trends of mortality and Disability-adjusted Life-Years (DALY) for the priority NTDs over the last 25 years.We used the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2015 estimates for this study. The GBD 2015 data source for cause of death and DALY estimation included verbal autopsy (VA), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), and other disease specific surveys, Ministry of Health reports submitted to United Nations (UN) agencies and published scientific articles. Cause of Death Ensemble modeling (CODEm) and/or natural history models were used to estimate NTDs mortality rates. DALY were estimated as the sum of Years of Life Lost (YLL) due to premature mortality and Years Lived with Disability (YLD).All NTDs caused an estimated of 6,293 deaths (95% uncertainty interval (UI): 3699-10,080) in 1990 and 3,593 deaths (95% UI: 2051 - 6178) in 2015, a 43% reduction over the 25 years. Age-standardized mortality rates due to schistosomiasis, STH and leshmaniasis have declined by 91.3%, 73.5% and 21.6% respectively between 1990 to 2015. The number of DALYs due to all NTDs has declined from 814.4 thousand (95% UI: 548 thousand-1.2million) in 1990 to 579.5 thousand (95%UI: 309.4 thousand-1.3 million) in 2015. Age-standardized DALY rates due to all NTDs declined by 30.7%, from 17.6 per 1000(95%UI: 12.5-26.5) in 1990 to 12.2 per 1000(95%UI: 6.5 - 27.4) in 2015. Age-standardized DALY rate for trachoma declined from 92.7 per 100,000(95% UI: 63.2 - 128.4) in 1990 to 41.2 per 100,000(95%UI: 27.4-59.2) in 2015, a 55.6% reduction between 1990 and 2015. Age-standardized DALY rates for onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and lymphiaticfilariasis decreased by 66.2%, 29.4% and 12.5% respectively between 1990 and 2015. DALY rate for ascariasis fell by 56.8% over the past 25 years.Ethiopia has made a remarkable progress in reducing the DALY rates for most of the NTDs over the last 25 years. The rapid scale of interventions and broader system strengthening may have a lasting impact on achieving the 2020 goal of elimination of most of NTDs. Ethiopia should strengthen the coverage of integrated interventions of NTD through proper coordination with other health programs and sectors and community participation to eliminate NTDs by 2020.

The study was conducted in three watersheds (Dapo, Meja and Mizewa) in the Ethiopian part of the Blue Nile Basin to estimate the onsite cost of soil erosion using the productivity change approach, in which crop yield reduction due to plant nutrients lost with the sediment and runoff has been analyzed. For this purpose, runoff measurement and sampling was conducted during the main rainy season of 2011 at the outlet of two to three sub watersheds in each watershed. The sediment concentration of the runoff, and nitrogen and phosphorus content of the runoff and sediment were determined. Crop response functions were developed for the two plant nutrients based on data obtained from the nearest Agricultural Research Centers. The response functions were used to estimate crop yield reduction as a result of the lost N and P assuming there is no compensation through fertilization. The results show a significant yield reduction and resultant financial loss to the farmers. Considering only grain yield of maize (Zea mays), farmers at Dapo annually lose about 220 and USD 150 ha-1 due to the loss of nitrogen and phosphorus, respectively. In view of the importance of the crop residues including as feed, the loss can be even greater. The study demonstrated that in addition to the long-term deterioration of land quality, the annual financial loss suffered by farmers is substantial. Therefore, on farm soil and water conservation measures that are suitable in biophysical and socio-economic terms in the landscapes and beyond need to be encouraged.