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We are honoured to present this special issue of the I Refugee Survey Quarterly i on the contemporary role of the global refugee regime in Africa. THE GLOBAL REFUGEE REGIME IN AFRICA TODAY The global refugee regime remains difficult to define, with no legal or even agreed definition.[2] As a result, it is frequently left undefined in policy discussions and academic articles. Indeed, the papers show how different forms of State marginalisation instrumentalise refugee regime norms, categories and laws to realise broader political goals of African governments. The third theme that arises through the five papers is I resisting the refugee regime. i Supporting previous research on this topic, Hetaba et al. highlight how many forced migrants in Egypt prefer to settle informally due to the perceived barriers in obtaining refugee status through UNHCR and the host State. [Extracted from the article]

Background: Infertility affects over 50 million couples worldwide and impacts people's social and emotional wellbeing. In low- and middle-income countries, particularly across Africa, the inclusion of fertility care into reproductive health (RH) policies remains fragmented or non-existent.Objective and Rationale: This review aims to provide a framework for understanding the inclusion (or lack thereof) of fertility care in RH policies in African settings. It synthesizes the barriers and facilitators to such inclusion, with a view to uncovering the positioning of fertility care in broader health systems and on the agendas of key stakeholders such as health policymakers and practitioners.Search Methods: A qualitative evidence synthesis was performed, systematically searching papers and grey literature. Searches were conducted in MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, Web of Science and Scopus between February and April 2020. No date restrictions were applied. Language was limited to publications written in English and French. Two reviewers independently screened titles and abstracts, and extracted data, applying thematic coding. The quality of the included papers was evaluated using The Joanna Briggs Institute Checklist for Text and Opinion Papers.Outcomes: The search identified 744 papers, of which 20 were included. Findings were organized under four cross-cutting categories, namely: perceived importance of infertility; influence of policy context; resource availability and access; and perceived quality of care. Across these categories, key barriers to the inclusion of fertility care in RH policies were limited political commitment, under-recognition of the burden of infertility and high costs associated with ART. Conversely, facilitators comprised specialized training on infertility for healthcare providers, standard procedures for ART safety and guidelines and North-South/South-South collaborations.Wider Implications: The inclusion of fertility care in African RH policies depends upon factors that include the recognition of infertility as a disease, strong political engagement and proactivity and affordability of ART through opportunities for partnership with the private sector, which ease costs on the public health system. Further qualitative and quantitative research, including context-specific analysis and in-depth comparative approaches across diverse African countries, will help to delineate differential impacts of local and global factors on fertility care to address this neglected RH issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fairness or equity in health financing is critical to ensuring universal health coverage (UHC). While equity in health financing is generally about financing health services according to ability-to-pay, misconceptions exist among policymakers, decision-makers and some researchers about what constitutes financing health services according to ability-to-pay or an equitably financed health system. This commentary characterizes three misconceptions of equitable health financing-(1) the misconception of fair contribution, (2) the pro-poor misconception and (3) the misconception of cross-subsidization. The paper also uses these misconceptions to clearly illustrate what constitutes equity in health financing, highlighting the importance of income distribution. The misconceptions come from the authors' extensive engagements with policymakers and practitioners, especially in Africa. A clear understanding of equity in health financing provides an avenue to significant progress towards UHC and improving a country's income distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the drivers of firm innovation in 35 African and Latin American countries. We investigate how firm-level capabilities and national country characteristics affect firm innovation activities and innovation outputs. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, we analyze the factors driving firm-level innovation distinguishing two stages in the innovation process: firm engagement with innovation inputs and the translation of innovation inputs into innovation outputs. The paper provides empirical support for the importance of country-level macro and institutional characteristics, in addition to firm-level capabilities, across a large number of countries in determining firm-level innovation. We demonstrate that capital investment and training are just as important innovation activities as research and development spending in developing economies. We highlight the heterogeneity in firm innovation across firm size, country- and firm-level characteristics, and economic sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern humans originated in Africa 300,000 yr ago, and before leaving their continent of origin, they underwent a process of intense diversification involving complex demographic dynamics. Upon exiting Africa, different populations emerged on the four other inhabited continents, shaped by the interplay of various evolutionary processes, such as migrations, founder effects, and natural selection. Within each region, continental populations, in turn, diversified and evolved almost independently for millennia. As a backdrop to this diversification, introgressions from archaic species contributed to establishing different patterns of genetic diversity in different geographic regions, reshaping our understanding of our species' variability. With the increasing availability of genomic data, it has become possible to delineate the subcontinental human population structure precisely. However, the bias toward the genomic research focused on populations from the global North has limited our understanding of the real diversity of our species and the processes and events that guided different human groups throughout their evolutionary history. This perspective is part of a series of articles celebrating 40 yr since our journal, Molecular Biology and Evolution , was founded (Russo et al. 2024). The perspective is accompanied by virtual issues, a selection of papers on human diversification published by Genome Biology and Evolution and Molecular Biology and Evolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although climate change is among the main ecological crisis the world is grappling with today, relevant discourses on the subject often focus exclusively on the existential threats it presents ignoring other associated risks, including how it exacerbates modern slavery vulnerabilities. Despite already constituting a major human rights challenge, climate change promises to further exacerbate the modern slavery conundrum in Africa. Thus, in this paper, two interconnected questions are engaged with. Firstly, the climate crisis is interrogated vis-à-vis the way it induces modern slavery vulnerabilities in Africa and undermines human rights. The second aspect assesses the utility of the human rights framework in climate change action and its potential to protect modern slavery victims. While African countries are obligated to implement mitigation and adaptation strategies within their jurisdictions, to effectively address the modern slavery challenge, the paper suggests a stronger focus on global climate action via international cooperation and debt-for-nature swap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does ambient infrastructural quality affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in developing countries? This paper investigates how the arrival of high-speed internet in Africa triggered FDI into the region. It also explores the role of complementary infrastructure, such as access to electricity and road connectivity, in amplifying the impact of internet connectivity on investment. To causally estimate impacts, the paper exploits plausibly exogenous variations in access to high-speed internet induced by the staggered arrival of submarine fiber-optic internet cables and spatial variations in terrestrial fiber cable networks across locations on the continent. Findings from the paper indicate that access to high-speed internet induces FDI, particularly in the service sector, with the finance, technology, retail, and health services subsectors as the main beneficiaries. Access to (hard) infrastructure, such as electricity and roads, amplifies the impact of internet connectivity on FDI, thus highlighting the role of complementarities in the impact of infrastructure. Further, the results suggest that improvement in quality of governance and increased performance of incumbent firms are plausible mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses dozens of large-scale household surveys to measure average changes in fertility following hundreds of droughts, floods, earthquakes, tropical cyclones, other storms, and epidemics in Africa between 1980 and 2016. Droughts are the largest and longest-lasting type of disaster on average, and fertility decreases by between 3.5 and 6.8 percent in the five years after droughts. Fertility changes are smaller or less clear after other types of disasters. Comparisons between countries, rather than within countries, drive these findings. There is substantial geographic heterogeneity in the direction and magnitude of the changes in fertility after disasters, driven by characteristics of the disasters and survey respondents. Fertility decreases especially after more recent droughts and in areas prone to drought. Fertility also decreases after longer floods. Fertility decreases after epidemics for women near the start and end of their childbearing careers, but increases for women in their late twenties and early thirties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water will be a major limitation to food production in the 21st century, and drought issues already prevail in many parts of the world. Finding solutions to ensure that farmers harvest profitable crops, and secure food supplies for families and feed for animals that will provide for them through to the next season are urgent necessities. The Interdrought community has been addressing this issue for almost 30 years in a series of international conferences, characterized by a multi-disciplinary approach across the domains of molecular biology, physiology, genetics, agronomy, breeding, environmental and social sciences, policy, and systems modeling. This special issue presents papers from the 7th edition of the conference, the first to be held in Africa, that paid special attention to drought in a smallholder context, adding a 'system' dimension to the crop focus from the previous Interdrought events (Varshney et al. , 2018 ; Hammer et al. , 2021). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUMMARY: Earthquake hazard assessment is the first step towards implementing prevention, preparedness and response or faster recovery actions to reduce the risk of seismic disasters. In this paper, we present a comprehensive study on present-day seismicity in terms of the estimated waiting time and conditional probability in Africa by 2022–2072 using four competing distribution models (Brownian passage time (BPT), gamma, lognormal and Weibull). We also investigate how much Coulomb stress change $\ ({\Delta {\rm CFF}})$ induced by previous earthquakes that occurred in neighbouring active sources should revise the probability of occurrence at the location of the next events. We analyse large earthquakes with moment magnitude, ${M}_{\rm w} \ge 6.0$ , collating data from the Global Centroid Moment Tensor and from several published literature that list fault plane solutions of large African earthquakes since 1900. We assume that the data set is stationary and consists of independent events. First, the model's parameters are estimated and the results of the statistical analysis of the interevent times show clear evidence of quasi-periodic recurrence behaviour for large earthquakes ${M}_{\rm w} \ge $ 6.0 in different seismotectonic regions in Africa. Next, a comparison among the distribution models is performed with the aim of selecting the most suitable one. The results in terms of the maximum likelihood criterion and its extension (Akaike Information Criterion) indicate that, in general, the BPT and Weibull models had similar fits to each other, and performed slightly better than gamma and lognormal models. Then, we use Gaussian random distributions to treat parameter uncertainties (e.g. aperiodicity, maximum expected magnitude, slip rate and mean recurrence time) of the distribution models associated with each seismotectonic region. From repeated Monte Carlo draws, we assess uncertainties of the 50-yr conditional probability values for the next earthquake obtained from two distribution models (BPT and BPT + $\Delta {\rm CFF}$) related to the 50th percentile. The results of the BPT distribution indicate very high chances of future earthquakes in the study region where the conditional probability of a large earthquake reaches 99.5, 95.6, 83.1 and 82.2 per cent for the western branch of the East African Rift System (EARS), northwest Africa, the Afar region, and the eastern branch of EARS, respectively. Taking into account the effect of stress change from interacting sources (BPT + $\Delta {\rm CFF}$), these probabilities are slightly modified to 99.8, 98.4, 89.9 and 87.3 per cent for the western branch of EARS, northwest Africa, the Afar region and the eastern branch of EARS, respectively. These marginal increases suggest that the estimated effect of the earthquake interaction introduced by the coseismic slip of previous earthquakes on neighbouring active sources is minor if compared with the uncertainties affecting the renewal models used for the basic time-dependent conditional probability assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Priority setting represents an even bigger challenge during public health emergencies than routine times. This is because such emergencies compete with routine programmes for the available health resources, strain health systems and shift health-care attention and resources towards containing the spread of the epidemic and treating those that fall seriously ill. This paper is part of a larger global study, the aim of which is to evaluate the degree to which national COVID-19 preparedness and response plans incorporated priority setting concepts. It provides important insights into what and how priority decisions were made in the context of a pandemic. Specifically, with a focus on a sample of 18 African countries' pandemic plans, the paper aims to: (1) explore the degree to which the documented priority setting processes adhere to established quality indicators of effective priority setting and (2) examine if there is a relationship between the number of quality indicators present in the pandemic plans and the country's economic context, health system and prior experiences with disease outbreaks. All the reviewed plans contained some aspects of expected priority setting processes but none of the national plans addressed all quality parameters. Most of the parameters were mentioned by less than 10 of the 18 country plans reviewed, and several plans identified one or two aspects of fair priority setting processes. Very few plans identified equity as a criterion for priority setting. Since the parameters are relevant to the quality of priority setting that is implemented during public health emergencies and most of the countries have pre-existing pandemic plans; it would be advisable that, for the future (if not already happening), countries consider priority setting as a critical part of their routine health emergency and disease outbreak plans. Such an approach would ensure that priority setting is integral to pandemic planning, response and recovery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Artemisinin-resistant Plasmodium falciparum malaria is currently spreading globally, including in Africa. Artemisinin resistance also leads to resistance to partner drugs used in artemisinin-based combination therapies. Sequencing of kelch13 , which is associated with artemisinin resistance, culture-based partner drug susceptibility tests, and ELISA-based growth measurement are conventionally used to monitor resistance; however, their application is challenging in resource-limited settings. Methods An experimental package for field studies with minimum human/material requirements was developed. Results First, qPCR-based SNP assay was applied in artemisinin resistance screening, which can detect mutations within 1 h and facilitate sample selection for subsequent processes. It had 100% sensitivity and specificity compared with DNA sequencing in the detection of the two common artemisinin resistance mutations in Uganda, C469Y and A675V. Moreover, in the partner drug susceptibility test, the cultured samples were dry-preserved on a 96-well filter paper plate and shipped to the central laboratory. Parasite growth was measured by ELISA using redissolved samples. It well reproduced the results of direct ELISA, reducing significant workload in the field (Pearson correlation coefficient: 0.984; 95% CI: 0.975–0.990). Conclusions Large-scale and sustainable monitoring is required urgently to track rapidly spreading drug-resistant malaria. In malaria-endemic areas, where research resources are often limited, simplicity and feasibility of the procedure is especially important. Our approach combines a qPCR-based rapid test, which is also applicable to point-of-care diagnosis of artemisinin resistance and centralized analysis of ex vivo culture. The approach could improve efficiency of field experiments and accelerate global drug resistance surveillance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to position the Scramble for Africa in the context of the continent's transformative, global nineteenth century. While imperial historiography develops apace, Africa-facing analyses of the continent's partition and the processes which led to it are increasingly rare. European expansion into Africa was characterized by an aggressive dynamism, and millions of Africans experienced profound crisis in the process of the establishment of colonial rule. Yet Africa's revolutionary nineteenth century was both driven by, and culminated in, complex processes of co-option on the part of Africans and Europeans. The paper proposes that a more Africa-centered assessment of the Scramble is possible, one which aims to contextualize the partition of the continent as part of an ongoing, endogenously shaped but often exogenously connected, transformation in political, economic, and social organization and behavior. While no single overarching theory can apply to the entire continent, it is possible to identify dynamics and processes for change that recur across Africa, from political and military reform to economic innovation. These point toward possibilities for reframing Africa's development in the late precolonial period, and enable us to challenge the hegemony long enjoyed by scholars of European empires. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines how malaria control in Africa became a neoliberal enterprise that privileged market mechanisms as an ideal way to disseminate health interventions. It does so by tracking efforts to sell insecticide-treated nets on the continent as these tools transformed from cheap stopgap measures intended for primary health care programmes in the early 1980s to a major target of global health aid by the 2000s. Even though experience showed that selling insecticide-treated nets to African populations did not lead to high levels of uptake, malaria programme leaders continued to tinker with market mechanisms to scale up the intervention in line with the interests of prominent donors. Narrating this history as it unfolded across different African countries, this paper shows that the neoliberalisation of malaria control was a contingent and fragmented process that depended as much on local experiences with particular health technologies as it did on high-level policy-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Advances in evolutionary theories (the Extended Synthesis) demonstrate that organisms systematically modify environments in ways that influence their own and other species' evolution. This paper utilises these theories to examine the economic consequences of human dispersal from Africa. Evidence shows that early humans' dispersal affected the adaptability of animal species to human environments and, through this, the extinction of large mammals during Homo sapiens ' out-of-Africa migration. Empirical analyses explore the variation in extinction rates as a source of exogenous pressure for cooperation and innovation among hunter-gatherers and examine the impact of extinction on long-run development. The results indicate that extinction affects economic performance by driving continental differences in biogeography, disease environments and institutions. Eurasia's location along the out-of-Africa migratory path provided human and animal populations with co-evolutionary foundations for domestication and agriculture, which gave Eurasians technological and institutional advantages in comparative development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The illegal poaching of lions for their body parts poses a severe threat to lion populations across Africa. Poaching accounts for 35% of all human-caused lion deaths, with 51% attributed to retaliatory killings following livestock predation. In nearly half of the retaliatory killings, lion body parts are removed, suggesting that high demand for lion body parts may fuel killings attributed to human-lion conflict. Trafficked items are often confiscated in transit or destination countries far from their country of origin. DNA from lion parts may in some cases be the only available means for examining their geographic origins. In this paper, we present the Lion Localizer, a full-stack software tool that houses a comprehensive database of lion mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences sourced from previously published studies. The database covers 146 localities from across the African continent and India, providing information on the potential provenance of seized lion body parts. Lion mtDNA sequences of 350 or 1,140 bp corresponding to the cytochrome b region can be generated from lion products and queried against the Lion Localizer database. Using the query sequence, the Lion Localizer generates a listing of exact or partial matches, which are displayed on an interactive map of Africa. This allows for the rapid identification of potential regions and localities where lions have been or are presently being targeted by poachers. By examining the potential provenance of lion samples, the Lion Localizer serves as a valuable resource in the fight against lion poaching. The software is available at https://lionlocalizer.org. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While current levels of economic inequality in Africa receive ample attention from academics and policymakers, we know little about the long-run evolution of inequality in the region. Even the new and influential 'global inequality literature' that is associated with scholars like Thomas Piketty, Branko Milanovic, and Walter Scheidel has had little to say about Africa so far. This paper is a first effort to fill that void. Building on recent research in African economic history and utilizing the new theoretical frameworks of the global inequality literature, we chart the long-run patterns and drivers of inequality in Africa from the slave trades to the present. Our analysis dismantles mainstream narratives about the colonial roots of persistent high inequality in post-colonial Africa and shows that existing inequality concepts and theories need further calibration to account, among others, for the role of African slavery in the long-run emergence and vanishing of inequality regimes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about legitimizing human rights in Africa have centred on making universal human rights principles relevant to local social and cultural contexts. Localizing human rights norms requires seeing human rights in terms of relevance to specific situations rather than as the application of abstract principles. In this paper, scholars and advocates analyse the challenges in the practice of human rights, with a focus on mothers impacted by albinism, whether as mothers of children with albinism or as mothers with albinism themselves. Women and girls impacted by albinism are particularly vulnerable to human rights violations and reflect the unfulfilled promise of the United Nations principle to 'Leave no one behind'. On account of intersecting factors—including denial of humanity; gendered stigma, discrimination and disenfranchisement; lack of access to the social determinants of health; and violence—mothers impacted by albinism are truly amongst those 'furthest behind'. Drawing on the frameworks of vernacularization and culturalization, we conceptualize and contextualize human rights in relation to the unique experiences of mothers impacted by albinism in Tanzania, South Africa, and Ghana. Our analysis takes up four particularities that pose challenges to protecting the rights of mothers impacted by albinism: personhood as foundation for human rights; the communal nature of human rights; proportionality and human rights; and the intersectional nature of human rights. These particularities shed light on human rights practice for mothers impacted by albinism and carry implications for human rights practice more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic systemic autoimmune disease characterized by inflammation, pain, and cartilage and bone damage. There is currently no cure for RA. It is however managed using nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, corticosteroids and disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs, often with severe side effects. Hidden within Africa's lush vegetation are plants with diverse medicinal properties including anti-RA potentials. This paper reviews the scientific literature for medicinal plants, growing in Africa, with reported anti-RA activities and identifies the most abundant phytochemicals deserving research attention. A search of relevant published scientific literature, using the major search engines, such as Pubmed/Medline, Scopus, Google Scholar, etc. was conducted to identify medicinal plants, growing in Africa, with anti-RA potentials. Key findings Twenty plants belonging to 17 families were identified. The plants are rich in phytochemicals, predominantly quercetin, rutin, catechin, kaempferol, etc. known to affect some pathways relevant in RA initiation and progression, and therefore useful in its management. Summary Targeted research is needed to unlock the potentials of medicinal plants by developing easy-to-use technologies for preparing medicines from them. Research attention should focus on how best to exploit the major phytochemicals identified in this review for the development of anti-RA 'green pharmaceuticals'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has revealed the fragility of pre-crisis African health systems, in which too little was invested over the past decades. Yet, development assistance for health (DAH) more than doubled between 2000 and 2020, raising questions about the role and effectiveness of DAH in triggering and sustaining health systems investments. This paper analyses the inter-regional variations and trends of DAH in Africa in relation to some key indicators of health system financing and service delivery performance, examining (1) the trends of DAH in the five regional economic communities of Africa since 2000; (2) the relationship between DAH spending and health system performance indicators and (3) the quantitative and qualitative dimensions of aid substitution for domestic financing, policy-making and accountability. Africa is diverse and the health financing picture has evolved differently in its subregions. DAH represents 10% of total spending in Africa in 2020, but DAH benefitted Southern Africa significantly more than other regions over the past two decades. Results in terms of progress towards universal health coverage (UHC) are slightly associated with DAH. Overall, DAH may also have substituted for public domestic funding and undermined the formation of sustainable UHC financing models. As the COVID-19 crisis hit, DAH did not increase at the country level. We conclude that the current architecture of official development assistance (ODA) is no longer fit for purpose. It requires urgent transformation to place countries at the centre of its use. Domestic financing of public health institutions should be at the core of African social contracts. We call for a deliberate reassessment of ODA modalities, repurposing DAH on what it could sustainably finance. Finally, we call for a new transparent framework to monitor DAH that captures its contribution to building institutions and systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically shows that the imbalance between an ethnic group's political and military power is crucial to understanding the likelihood that such a group engages in a conflict. We develop a novel measure of a group's military power by combining machine-learning techniques with rich data on ethnic group characteristics and outcomes of civil conflicts in Africa and the Middle East. We couple this measure with available indicators of an ethnic group's political power as well as with a novel proxy based on information about the ethnicity of cabinet members. We find that groups characterized by a higher mismatch between military and political power are between 30% and 50% more likely to engage in a conflict against their government depending on the specification used. We also find that the effects of power mismatch are non-linear, which is in agreement with the predictions of a simple model that accounts for the cost of conflict. Moreover, our results suggest that high-mismatched groups are typically involved in larger and centrist conflicts. The policy implication is that power-sharing recommendations and institutional design policies for peace should consider primarily the reduction of power mismatches between relevant groups, rather than focusing exclusively on equalizing political power in isolation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives Our paper highlights areas of interest to psychologists studying aging in Africa and what has already been learned about aspects of psychological aging from studies done in the African context. We also considered whether there are issues that are unique about aging in the African context that might challenge how aging is typically considered in psychology research. Methods We reviewed articles recently published in major gerontology journals focusing on African older adults, with the goal of identifying key themes of current geropsychology in Africa. Results We identified a number of dominant themes including: subjective aging, psychosocial impact of widowhood at old age, aging in place, stress and caregiving, cognitive aging, interrelations between HIV and aging, and successful aging. Discussion The themes of psychological aging research identified as especially relevant in Africa provide a starting point for psychological aging researchers in general to engage with the African context. Many African countries may be facing common challenges, but the existing studies are not fully representative of the aging population in the continent. Creating a framework for organizing and coordinating funding will help to address the limited research on geropsychology in Africa. Collaborative research projects/programs, joint classrooms, and fellowships that support African geropsychology scholars will be helpful. Geropsychology will benefit from more engagement with the African context by applying innovative approaches such as the adoption of longitudinal designs, mixed-method research, Experience Sampling Methods, translation of measures into indigenous languages, involvement of rural samples, and implementation science and community-engaged research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The African region of the World Health Organization (WHO) recently adopted a strategy aimed at more comprehensive care for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) in the region. The WHO's World Health Assembly has also newly approved several ambitious disease-specific targets that raise the expectations of chronic care and plans to revise and update the NCD-Global Action Plan. These actions provide a critically needed opportunity for reflection and course correction in the global health response to NCDs. In this paper, we highlight the status of the indicators that are currently used to monitor progress towards global goals for chronic care. We argue that weak health systems and lack of access to basic NCD medicines and technologies have prevented many countries from achieving the level of progress required by the NCD epidemic, and current targets do little to address this reality. We identify gaps in existing metrics and explore opportunities to realign the targets with the pressing priorities facing today's health systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mapanoioideae are one of two subfamilies of Cyperaceae and consist of 186 species. Molecular phylogenetic relationships in subfamily Cyperoideae have recently been studied well, whereas evolutionary relationships in Mapanioideae remain little known. Subfamily Mapanioideae include two tribes. This study focuses on Hypolytreae, which is represented by three genera in Africa (Hypolytrum , Mapania and Principina). In this paper, we present the first molecular phylogenetic study of African Hypolytreae using a Sanger sequencing approach. We aim to (1) test whether Hypolytrum , Mapania and Principina are reciprocally monophyletic; (2) investigate whether the morphologically based sections in Hypolytrum and Mapania represent monophyletic taxa; (3) resolve species delimitation where multiple accessions could be sequenced and (4) explore the relationships of species occurring in West Tropical Africa vs. Central Africa. Our phylogenetic analyses strongly support Mapania and Hypolytrum as separate genera, but Principina is nested in Hypolytrum. This result is consistent with morphological differences. Mapania spp. are obligate rainforest species, but our results show that species from West Tropical Africa and species from Central Africa do not form separate clades. Dispersal between these regions may have happened during interglacial periods when the rainforest was continuous. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Bangladesh and West Bengal cholera is seasonal, transmission occurs consistently annually. By contrast, in most African countries, cholera has inconsistent seasonal patterns and long periods without obvious transmission. Transmission patterns in Africa occur during intermittent outbreaks followed by elimination of that genetic lineage. Later another outbreak may occur because of reintroduction of new or evolved lineages from adjacent areas, often by human travelers. These then subsequently undergo subsequent elimination. The frequent elimination and reintroduction has several implications when planning for cholera's elimination including: a) reconsidering concepts of definition of elimination, b) stress on rapid detection and response to outbreaks, c) more effective use of oral cholera vaccine and WASH, d) need to readjust estimates of disease burden for Africa, e) re-examination of water as a reservoir for maintaining endemicity in Africa. This paper reviews major features of cholera's epidemiology in African countries which appear different from the Ganges Delta. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the role of finance within a traditional form of capitalism. In essence, it was a component of a dynamic process which relied on classical production functions to create value. This contrasts with its more recent role in which financial value creation happens in isolation of production. It tries to tease out the implications for Africa as well as for the future of capitalism. The conclusion reached is that Africa is ripe for that traditional role of finance, but not for its modern variant. Policy choices will determine which options dominate investment decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) risks rolling back many of the efforts and global successes recorded in reducing poverty and food insecurity. We undertake a systematic search and review of the growing microeconomic literature on the association between COVID-19 and food insecurity in Africa, discussing its implications for food policy and research. Furthermore, we review the various coping strategies households employ to build resilience to COVID-19. The evidence indicates that COVID-19 is associated with an increase in food insecurity both ex-ante and ex-durante. Given the covariate nature of COVID-19 and associated control mechanisms, current evidence is short of providing clear causal learning. We provide some potential interesting areas where future efforts can be geared to improve learning on the relationship between COVID-19, food insecurity, and building resilience to shocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a significant rise in the share of women legislators in Africa. What makes this fact puzzling is that it cannot be attributed to an African electorate that values gender equality and having women in political leadership positions. In stark contrast to this, gender equality and women's empowerment have successively moved up in the priority list of the international donor community over the last two decades. This raises the question of whether there is a relationship between women legislators in Africa and foreign-aid allocations. This study finds a strong and statistically robust relationship: an increase in the share of women legislators from 15 to 20 percent is associated with an increase of about 4 percent in aid conditional on current levels of aid. Additionally, the study finds that democratic countries receive more aid but does not find an interaction effect between democracy and the share of women legislators, which suggests that donors do not tailor their gender-selective aid towards more democratic countries. The results provide evidence in support of aid selectivity for policies that improve gender equality in aid-recipient countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article contributes to two debates about international relations (IR) as a discipline: first, how global is IR, and how is it structured? Second, what is the state of theory in IR? We conducted (co-) citation analyses of both Web of Science (WoS) and—for the first time— non-WoS publications from Europe, North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. With regard to the first question, we find that global IR resembles a core–periphery structure as a "hub and spoke" system whereby transatlantic core nodes are interconnected to each other and to some periphery nodes, while the periphery nodes are connected to the core but not to each other. IR scholarship in the periphery quotes the transatlantic theory cluster but is not linked to each other, not even in the same region. Knowledge produced in the periphery has to go through the transatlantic core in order to be recognized globally. As to the transatlantic core, we identify two major (co-) citation clusters: one committed to IR theory-building across issue areas from a variety of perspectives and the other focused on security studies with a strong emphasis on quantitative methods. With regard to the second question, global IR hangs together through references to the IR theory cluster consisting of North American and European authors who appear to define what IR theory is. Scholars in the periphery refer to this transatlantic IR theory cluster when engaging in theory-building. IR theories have become rather diverse and pluralistic, even in the core. While scholars still refer to the big "isms," they use them around the globe in a synthesizing manner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I was among the participants in the conference 'Texts, Knowledge, and Practice: The Meaning of Scholarship in Muslim Africa' at the Harvard School of Divinity (February 2017), but was not able to attend the follow-up conference in October of the same year, "New Directions in the Study of Islamic Scholarship in Africa". I Islamic Scholarship in Africa i pushes forward Kane's intellectual agenda inaugurated in his 2003 I Intellectuels non-europhones i (Dakar, Senegal: Codesria, 2nd edn.). [Extracted from the article]

Diabetes stigma is a pervasive social phenomenon with significant impacts on individuals living with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Despite the negative health impact of diabetes stigma, little is known about the experience of this phenomenon in Africa. This review aimed to synthesize existing quantitative and qualitative studies that examine the experiences and outcomes of T2DM stigma in Africa. A mixed studies review methodology was utilized to conduct this research. Relevant articles were identified by searching the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, PubMed, MEDLINE and PsycINFO databases. The mixed method appraisal tool was used to assess the quality of included studies. Of 2626 records identified, 10 articles met the inclusion criteria. The prevalence of diabetes stigma was as high as 70%. The results of the review indicate that individuals with T2DM in Africa are labelled as 'having HIV', 'nearing their death' and 'wasting resources'. These experiences were associated with low quality of life, disease concealment and avoidance of self-management behaviours. The findings highlight the urgent need for further stigma-centric studies to fully understand how T2DM stigma is experienced in Africa. The evidence from such studies would inform the development and evaluation of effective interventions to address this social consequence of T2DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on US-European global COVID-19 response exist due to alarming vaccine hesitancy in Europe and US contexts. Topics include emphasizing the urgent need for leveraging strategic multilateral diplomacy among US-European and ASEAN states combating pandemic; and emphasizing the important need for constructive education and awareness on public health information accepting COVID-19 vaccines in Africa.

Standard welfare comparisons between female-headed households (FHHs) and male-headed households (MHHs) have largely ignored two confounding factors: marital status (affecting access to assets and markets) and heterogeneity in household demographics (with bearing on economies of scale in consumption). Both influence welfare and are correlated with sex of headship. As judged by the usual per capita welfare measures, FHHs have lower poverty rates than MHHs in Africa. However, even a modest adjustment for economies of scale in consumption changes the poverty comparisons, with FHHs faring significantly worse overall in East, Central, and Southern Africa. Marital status also matters: the households of female heads are poorer than MHHs except when the female head is married. Taking the head's marital status and the household's demographics into account is critical to the association between female headship and welfare outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Accurate estimation of diarrhea incidence from facility-based surveillance requires estimating the population at risk and accounting for case patients who do not seek care. The Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Shigella surveillance study will characterize population denominators and healthcare-seeking behavior proportions to calculate incidence rates of Shigella diarrhea in children aged 6–35 months across 7 sites in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Methods The Enterics for Global Health (EFGH) Shigella surveillance study will use a hybrid surveillance design, supplementing facility-based surveillance with population-based surveys to estimate population size and the proportion of children with diarrhea brought for care at EFGH health facilities. Continuous data collection over a 24 month period captures seasonality and ensures representative sampling of the population at risk during the period of facility-based enrollments. Study catchment areas are broken into randomized clusters, each sized to be feasibly enumerated by individual field teams. Conclusions The methods presented herein aim to minimize the challenges associated with hybrid surveillance, such as poor parity between survey area coverage and facility coverage, population fluctuations, seasonal variability, and adjustments to care-seeking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There have been few reports from Africa on the use and health effects of emollient therapy for newborn infants. We aimed to describe neonatal skin care practices in Africa, and to illuminate opportunities to introduce evidence-based interventions to improve these practices. We conducted a scoping review of the quantitative and qualitative published peer-reviewed and grey literature in English on emollient use in Africa. Outcomes of interest included neonatal skin care practices, with a focus on the application of oils and other products to infant skin, including in association with bathing and massage. We screened 5257 articles and summarised findings from 23 studies—13 qualitative, nine quantitative and one mixed methods—that met our study criteria. Seven studies reported the use of emollients for perceived benefits, including thermal care, treatment for illness, promotion of growth and development, infection reduction, skin condition improvement, spirituality and lubrication to aid massage. Four studies reported the quantitative health impact of skin care product applications, including improvements in skin condition, neurodevelopment and bone growth, as well as a reduction in nosocomial infections. This review highlights opportunities for skin care intervention and future research on neonatal skin care practices in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Computer-aided detection (CAD) may be a useful screening tool for tuberculosis (TB). However, there are limited data about its utility in active case finding (ACF) in a community-based setting, and particularly in an HIV-endemic setting where performance may be compromised. Methods We performed a systematic review and evaluated articles published between January 2012 and February 2023 that included CAD as a screening tool to detect pulmonary TB against a microbiological reference standard (sputum culture and/or nucleic acid amplification test [NAAT]). We collected and summarized data on study characteristics and diagnostic accuracy measures. Two reviewers independently extracted data and assessed methodological quality against Quality Assessment of Diagnostic Accuracy Studies–2 criteria. Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Diagnostic Test Accuracy Studies (PRISMA-DTA) guidelines were followed. Results Of 1748 articles reviewed, 5 met with the eligibility criteria and were included in this review. A meta-analysis revealed pooled sensitivity of 0.87 (95% CI, 0.78–0.96) and specificity of 0.74 (95% CI, 0.55–0.93), just below the World Health Organization (WHO)–recommended target product profile (TPP) for a screening test (sensitivity ≥0.90 and specificity ≥0.70). We found a high risk of bias and applicability concerns across all studies. Subgroup analyses, including the impact of HIV and previous TB, were not possible due to the nature of the reporting within the included studies. Conclusions This review provides evidence, specifically in the context of ACF, for CAD as a potentially useful and cost-effective screening tool for TB in a resource-poor HIV-endemic African setting. However, given methodological concerns, caution is required with regards to applicability and generalizability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sharing of health data is an essential component in the provision of healthcare, in medical research, and disease surveillance. Health data sharing is subject to regulatory frameworks that vary across jurisdictions. In Africa, numerous factors complicate the regulation of health data sharing, including technological, motivational, economic, and political barriers, as well as ethical and legal challenges. This comparative study examines the regulation of health data sharing in Africa by comparing and contrasting the legal and policy frameworks of five African countries. The study identifies gaps and inconsistencies in the current regulatory regimes and provides recommendations for improving the regulation of health data sharing in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online interviews can be powerful tools in global health research. In this article, we review the literature on the use of and challenges associated with online interviews in health research in Africa and make recommendations for future online qualitative studies. The scoping review methodology was used. We searched on Medline and Embase in March 2022 for qualitative articles that used internet-based interviews as a data collection method. Following full-text reviews, we included nine articles. We found that online interviews were typically conducted via Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook Messaging and E-mail chats. Online interviews were used in Africa because of the restrictions imposed by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and the need to sample participants across multiple countries or communities. Recruitment for online interviews occurred online, interviews were characterised by inaudible sounds, the inability to use video options and the challenges of including people with low income and education. We recommend that researchers critically evaluate the feasibility of online interviews within a particular African locality before fully implementing this data collection approach. Researchers may also collaborate with community-based organisations to help recruit a more socioeconomically diverse sample because of the potential of excluding participants with limited internet access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the ancestors of modern Eurasians migrated out of Africa and interbred with Eurasian archaic hominins, namely, Neanderthals and Denisovans, DNA of archaic ancestry integrated into the genomes of anatomically modern humans. This process potentially accelerated adaptation to Eurasian environmental factors, including reduced ultraviolet radiation and increased variation in seasonal dynamics. However, whether these groups differed substantially in circadian biology and whether archaic introgression adaptively contributed to human chronotypes remain unknown. Here, we traced the evolution of chronotype based on genomes from archaic hominins and present-day humans. First, we inferred differences in circadian gene sequences, splicing, and regulation between archaic hominins and modern humans. We identified 28 circadian genes containing variants with potential to alter splicing in archaics (e.g. CLOCK , PER2 , RORB , and RORC) and 16 circadian genes likely divergently regulated between present-day humans and archaic hominins, including RORA. These differences suggest the potential for introgression to modify circadian gene expression. Testing this hypothesis, we found that introgressed variants are enriched among expression quantitative trait loci for circadian genes. Supporting the functional relevance of these regulatory effects, we found that many introgressed alleles have associations with chronotype. Strikingly, the strongest introgressed effects on chronotype increase morningness, consistent with adaptations to high latitude in other species. Finally, we identified several circadian loci with evidence of adaptive introgression or latitudinal clines in allele frequency. These findings identify differences in circadian gene regulation between modern humans and archaic hominins and support the contribution of introgression via coordinated effects on variation in human chronotype. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, various state-space implementations of surplus production models (SPMs) have been developed for data-limited stocks. Often, catches and fishing effort are underestimated and discards are ignored. This results in biased estimates of stock status and reference points. Therefore, we conduct a sensitivity analysis for different under-reporting scenarios (due to non-declared landings, by-catch, and discards) on model estimates and thus advice for the black hake species in northwest Africa. Two modelling frameworks were used, namely a stochastic SPM in continuous time (SPiCT) and Just Another Bayesian Biomass Assessment (JABBA). A common set of diagnostics was developed to allow comparison across modelling frameworks. Scenarios correspond to hypotheses about misreporting and assumptions and priors that were kept consistent. The ratio of current fishing mortality over the fishing pressure that gives the maximum sustainable yield, F/FMSY , is most affected by under-reporting. Results are sensitive to the prior assumed for the initial depletion level, B0/K , and research is needed. If the misreporting is changing over time, relative quantities (e.g. F/FMSY) and trends are biased, while if misreporting (or at least a part of misreporting) is constant, relative quantities are unbiased. Therefore, the nature of any trend in misreporting should be investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cocoa is an important crop that is predominantly grown in the western part of Africa. However, there have been fluctuations and declining trends in production and several factors have been identified to be responsible for this. A significant factor is the effect of climate variation, which could result in a low farm-level yield. Therefore, to understand the contribution of climate variability on the farm-level yield, we construct and analyse a time-delayed model to capture the effect of rainfall on cocoa production. This work uses a system of differential equations to model the crop transition from the flowering stage to pod formation, pod ripening and then to harvesting. We introduce a periodic forcing function into the model of flowering to account for the impact of seasonal rainfall variations. This leads to a novel nonlinear parametrically forced ODE for the flowering with periodically varying coefficients, which is coupled to a time-delayed model for the ripened pod formation and then harvesting. We perform an analysis of all parts of the system proving that it has a periodic solution when (parametrically) forced periodically, and we then conduct an asymptotic analysis on this periodic solution to show how its rich behaviour depends on the parameters of the climatic forcing in the model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing availability of DNA sequence data, in particular target enrichment data based on the universal Angiosperms353 probe set, but also accumulated Sanger data from previous phylogenetic studies, is facilitating the placement of taxa that are difficult to place with certainty based on morphological evidence alone. Here, we investigate phylogenetic relationships of Medinilla mirabilis (Melastomataceae), a species distributed in central Africa and currently classified in the mega-diverse genus Medinilla of tribe Sonerileae. Medinilla mirabilis is a twining liana with verticillate leaves when young, spherical inflorescences, 4-merous flowers, dimorphic stamens, and baccate fruits. Our results revealed that M. mirabilis is sister to tribe Dissochaeteae and only distantly related to Medinilla. We also provide new data on wood anatomical and seed morphological characters of M. mirabilis. The alternate inter-vessel pits in M. mirabilis and Dissochaeteae are consistent with the phylogenetic placement. Seeds of M. mirabilis are similar to those of Dissochaeteae and of Medinilla. Due to its unique morphology and phylogenetic position, we propose to reinstate the monospecific genus Myrianthemum with Myrianthemum mirabile. This necessitates expansion of the Southeast Asian tribe Dissochaeteae to include Myrianthemum as its only African member. Our study of M. mirabile demonstrates that the combined application of Angiosperms353 and Sanger data is a cost-effective approach to phylogenetically place enigmatic taxa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dormant seeds of the root parasitic plant Striga hermonthica sense strigolactones from host plants as environmental cues for germination. This process is mediated by a diversified member of the strigolactone receptors encoded by HYPOSENSITIVE TO LIGHT/KARRIKIN INSENSITIVE2 genes. It is known that warm and moist treatment during seed conditioning gradually makes dormant Striga seeds competent to respond to strigolactones, although the mechanism behind it is poorly understood. In this report, we show that plant hormone gibberellins increase strigolactone competence by up-regulating mRNA expression of the major strigolactone receptors during the conditioning period. This idea was supported by a poor germination phenotype in which gibberellin biosynthesis was depleted by paclobutrazol during conditioning. Moreover, live imaging with a fluorogenic strigolactone mimic, yoshimulactone green W, revealed that paclobutrazol treatment during conditioning caused aberrant dynamics of strigolactone perception after germination. These observations revealed an indirect role of gibberellins in seed germination in Striga , which contrasts with their roles as dominant germination-stimulating hormones in non-parasitic plants. We propose a model of how the role of gibberellins became indirect during the evolution of parasitism in plants. Our work also highlights the potential role for gibberellins in field applications, for instance, in elevating the sensitivity of seeds toward strigolactones in the current suicidal germination approach to alleviate the agricultural threats caused by this parasite in Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the face of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, the refugee problem in Africa is explicitly a multi-dimensional humanitarian, political, and security challenge. Linking the problem of refugees in Africa to the challenge of coexistence among then newly independent African States, Article III of the OAU Convention prohibits subversion by refugees. This study examines the evolution of this prohibition in the context of the history of post-colonial transition and authoritarianism which birthed it, and whose consequences are far from extinguished; suggesting that this context provides greater clarity to the scope and function of the prohibition as an obligation founded in a duty of friendly relations owed by African states to one another. Despite this, the language of the prohibition in the OAU Convention nevertheless lends it to sovereign self-help in a global context of rising authoritarian rule. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Seismic tomography models reveal differences in the geographic distribution and magnitude of P - and S -wave velocity variations (VP and VS , respectively) below ∼2200 km depth in the Earth's mantle. In particular, large low shear velocity provinces (LLSVPs) beneath the Pacific and Africa exhibit a distinct low velocity population in the distribution of VS that does not stand out in VP models, carrying important implications for the origin of these features. However, it is possible that the absence of a distinct low velocity feature in VP models is an artefact of VP models having lower resolution compared to VS models owing to differences in coverage. Here, we use 'tomographic filters' computed from the singular value decomposition of the sensitivity matrices for a pair of VP and VS models in order to test whether such low velocity features are suppressed in VP models. Our 'cross-filtered' results show that resolution alone cannot explain the absence of a corresponding low VP population. We additionally apply the joint VP and VS tomographic filter technique to thermochemical mantle convection models to show that cases with distinct phase and/or composition may be differentiated from cases where only temperature varies. We then develop a new proxy for exploring uncorrelated VP and VS more broadly using the difference between the observed VP model and the filtered VS model input. Our results show that 'large uncorrelated modulus provinces' (LUMPs) extend beyond the boundaries of LLSVPs, and exhibit anomalies in both fast and slow regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background Numerous groups of plants have adapted to CO2 limitations by independently evolving C4 photosynthesis. This trait relies on concerted changes in anatomy and biochemistry to concentrate CO2 within the leaf and thereby boost productivity in tropical conditions. The ecological and economic importance of C4 photosynthesis has motivated intense research, often relying on comparisons between distantly related C4 and non-C4 plants. The photosynthetic type is fixed in most species, with the notable exception of the grass Alloteropsis semialata. This species includes populations exhibiting the ancestral C3 state in southern Africa, intermediate populations in the Zambezian region and C4 populations spread around the palaeotropics. Scope We compile here the knowledge on the distribution and evolutionary history of the Alloteropsis genus as a whole and discuss how this has furthered our understanding of C4 evolution. We then present a chromosome-level reference genome for a C3 individual and compare the genomic architecture with that of a C4 accession of A. semialata. Conclusions Alloteropsis semialata is one of the best systems in which to investigate the evolution of C4 photosynthesis because the genetic and phenotypic variation provides a fertile ground for comparative and population-level studies. Preliminary comparative genomic investigations show that the C3 and C4 genomes are highly syntenic and have undergone a modest amount of gene duplication and translocation since the different photosynthetic groups diverged. The background knowledge and publicly available genomic resources make A. semialata a great model for further comparative analyses of photosynthetic diversification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

All defendants before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to date have been African, with their alleged crimes having been committed, at least partly, on African soil. When turning to national laws to resolve issues of interpretation in these cases, should the ICC see whether it can use laws of the African state in which the crime occurred? This article argues that it should, but observes – from a dataset of 16,192 citations containing over 200 citations to national laws – that it rarely does. Instead, it turns much more often to Western European and US laws. This phenomenon, the article suggests, troublingly reflects and perpetuates the marginalization of African and other global South laws from what constitutes international law. The article also argues that the Rome Statute requires the ICC to at least examine for appropriateness the laws of a subset of these neglected systems ('the national laws of States that would normally exercise jurisdiction over the crime') when identifying general principles of law. There are several compelling reasons to extend this examination requirement to African and other global South country laws more broadly, and even when not dealing with general principles of law, and few reasons not to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Aims The Lythraceae are a mainly subtropical to tropical family of the order Myrtales with 28 currently accepted genera and approximately 600 species. There is currently no well-supported phylogenetic and biogeographical hypothesis of the Lythraceae incorporating all currently accepted genera, which we sought to provide. Methods Plastomes of representative species of 18 distinct Lythraceae genera were sequenced and annotated. Together with existing sequences, plastomes of all 28 currently accepted genera in the Lythraceae were brought together for the first time. The plastomes were aligned and a Bayesian phylogenetic hypothesis was produced. We then conducted a time-calibrated Bayesian analysis and a biogeographical analysis. Key Results Plastome-based Bayesian and maximum-likelihood phylogenetic trees are generally congruent with recent nuclear phylogenomic data and resolve two deeply branching major clades in the Lythraceae. One major clade concentrates shrubby and arboreal South American and African genera that inhabit seasonally dry environments, with larger, often winged seeds, adapted to dispersal by the wind. The second major clade concentrates North American, Asian, African and several near-cosmopolitan herbaceous, shrubby and arboreal genera, often inhabiting humid or aquatic environments, with smaller seeds possessing structures that facilitate dispersal by water. Conclusions We hypothesize that the Lythraceae dispersed early in the Late Cretaceous from South American to North American continents, with subsequent expansion in the Late Cretaceous of a North American lineage through Laurasia to Africa via a boreotropical route. Two later expansions of South American clades to Africa in the Palaeocene and Eocene, respectively, are also hypothesized. Transoceanic dispersal in the family is possibly facilitated by adaptations to aquatic environments that are common to many extant genera of the Lythraceae, where long-distance dispersal and vicariance may be invoked to explain several remarkable disjunct distributions in Lythraceae clades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The darkling beetle tribe Adesmiini (Tenebrionidae: Pimeliinae) is a prominent part of African and western Palearctic desert faunas, with most species being day-active fast-running detritivores. Taxonomic diversity within the tribe is highest in the southern Afrotropical realm (where all genera are present); only 1 genus, the species-rich Adesmia , occurs north of the Sahara. Despite notable species, such as the fog-basking beetle Onymacris unguicularis (a focal taxon in desert ecological research), Adesmiini has undergone few modern taxonomic or phylogenetic studies. Hence, generic concepts and pronounced diurnal activity, rare in the primarily nocturnal family Tenebrionidae, remain poorly explored. To investigate evolutionary relationships and diurnal origins within the tribe, we generated a genomic dataset of 529 protein-coding genes across 43 species spanning 10 of 11 Adesmiini genera. Our resulting phylogeny for the tribe rejects the monophyly of 5 currently recognized Adesmiini genera (i.e. Adesmia , Metriopus , Onymacris , Physadesmia , and Stenocara). Ancestral state reconstruction of diurnal activity using eye shape as a proxy supports the hypothesis that Adesmiini were primitively diurnal, followed by at least 4 shifts to nocturnal or crepuscular activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because of potentially strong eco-evolutionary interactions with their hosts, parasites may initiate or enhance host diversification. The adaptive radiation of cichlid fish in Lake Victoria provides a good system to study the role of parasites at different stages of host speciation. We analyzed the macroparasite infection of four replicates of sympatric blue and red Pundamilia species pairs that vary in their age and extent of differentiation. Sympatric host species differed in parasite community composition and in the infection levels of some of these parasite taxa. Most infection differences were consistent between sampling years, indicating temporal consistency in parasite-mediated divergent selection between species. Infection differentiation increased linearly with genetic differentiation. However, significant infection differences between sympatric species were only found in the oldest, most strongly differentiated Pundamilia species pair. This is inconsistent with parasite-driven speciation. Next, we identified five distinct species of Cichlidogyrus , a genus of highly specific gill parasites that has radiated elsewhere in Africa. Infection profiles of species of Cichlidogyrus differed between sympatric cichlid species only in the oldest and most differentiated pair, again inconsistent with parasite-mediated speciation. To conclude, parasites may contribute to host differentiation after speciation, but do not initiate host speciation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]