Background and AimsEnvironmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding provides a highly sensitive method of surveying freshwater fish communities, although studies to date have largely been restricted to temperate ecosystems. Due to limited reference sequence availability and challenges identifying closely related and rare species in diverse tropical ecosystems, the effectiveness of metabarcoding methods for surveying tropical fish communities from eDNA samples remains uncertain. To address this, we applied an eDNA metabarcoding approach to survey Lake Tanganyika's (LT) species‐rich littoral fish communities.Materials and MethodsAs this system contains many closely related species, particularly cichlid fishes, we used four primer sets including a cichlid‐specific primer set (Cichlid_CR). A reference database was built for the 12s, 16s, and control region for 358 fish species including over 93% of known cichlids.Results and DiscussionIn silico and in situ results demonstrated wide variability in the taxonomic resolution of assignments by each primer with the cichlid‐specific marker (Cichlid_CR) enabling greater species‐level assignments for this highly diverse family. A greater number of non‐cichlid teleost species were detected at sites compared to the visual survey data. For cichlid species however, sequencing depth substantially influenced species richness estimates obtained from eDNA samples, with increased depths producing estimates comparable to that obtained from the visual survey data. ConclusionsOur study highlights the importance of sequencing depth and local reference databases when undertaking metabarcoding studies within diverse ecosystems, as well as demonstrating the potential of eDNA metabarcoding for surveying diverse tropical fish communities, even those containing closely related species within evolutionary radiations.

ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to assess the extent and health burden of neurocysticercosis in the general community of the Mbulu district, northern Tanzania. About 1051 randomly select participants were screened for human cysticercosis. The Cysticercus Western Blot IgG and Computed Tomography scan were used to detect infection by cysticerci. The DALYs was used to assess the community’s health burden vis-a-vis neurocysticercosis.ResultsThe sero-prevalence of HCC was 16.27%. About 76% of 25 selected human cysticercosis sero-positives had neurocysticercosis suggestive lesions on CT scan and 74% had history of epilepsy. Epilepsy caused 2.8 years of life lost and 2.2 healthy years of life lost due to disability per 1000 person-years in Mbulu. The average DALYs imposed due to neurocysticercosis and epilepsy were 3.0 and 3.9 per 1000 person-years, respectively. Neurocysticercosis is a serious public health concern in northern Tanzania.

Human cysticercosis, a zoonotic disease due to Taeniasolium, is of the highly debilitating and stigmatizing neglected tropical diseases due to epilepsy, ophthalmia and dermatological disorders in endemic developing countries. Tanzania is among the sub-Saharan African countries with an average prevalence of porcine cysticercosis 17.2% [1], which increases the risk of human cysticercosis infection. Studies on people with epilepsy in northern zone of Tanzania show a 16.2% [2] to be suffering from neurocysticercosis. While this was the case, there were no single report on the prevalence of human cysticercosis neither to regular hospital visitors, admissions, and nor general public that result to insufficient deployment of intervention strategies. Study was performed to assess the prevalence of human cysticercosis in general public in Mbulu district. The cephalic venous blood was collected from assorted community members. Serum was extracted and then subjected to Cysticercus IgG Western Blot Assay for human cysticercosis sero-screening. It was found that about 16.3% of the community members had antibodies signifying infection by human cysticercosis. This is the first ever study to assess the prevalence of human cysticercosis in the country and it has revealed the problem to be very high. This study can be valuable for deployment of appropriate intervention measures on human cysticercosis in the study area and extend to the entire country.

The European Union has evolved into a system of multilevel governance. EU actions have facilitated the involvement of regional/subnational authorities in EU policy formulation and implementation, thus enabling a downward shift in competencies toward subnational authorities. In this article, I argue that regional attachment facilitates support for European integration. Specifically, I show that individuals holding inclusive regional attachment sentiments perceive EU policies that result in the empowerment of subnational authorities in a positive light. In the process, these individuals are more likely to be supportive of European integration. This article’s findings contribute to the literature on public opinion and European integration by exploring regionalist sources of support for European integration. Moreover, these findings contribute to the growing research on the emergence of a ‘Europe of the regions.’

The factors that determine parasite assemblages among the clariid fishes of Lake Victoria, Tanzania were studied between August 2003 and February 2005. Six hundred and fifty-six fish belonging to seven species were necropsied and examined for parasites, from which 31 species of metazoan parasites were recorded. The community was dominated by the nematodes both in species and numbers. Most species were generalists with only two trematodes, Diplostomum mashonense and Tylodelphys species, being specialists of Clarias gariepinus. Ten species were considered core and predictable. Parasite species richness, number of individuals per host and Shannon-Wiener diversity indices were generally high. At the compound community level, a mean number of 7.8 parasites were shared among different species of fish and the maximum number of parasites species per fish at the infracommunity level was seven. Levels of similarity in parasite species richness at the component community level ranged from 29.6 to 61.5%. The study concludes that parasite communities in clariid fishes of Lake Victoria are structured by ecological factors. At the infracommunity level, host size, diet and vagility promoted a richer parasite community. At the compound level, two factors were crucial, namely the intermixing of the waters in the lake and the predominant and mobile C. gariepinus.