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Termite Taxonomy, Challenges and Prospects: West Africa, A Case Example.

ABSTRACT: Termites are important ecosystem engineers. Yet they are often difficult to identify due to the lack of reliable species-specific morphological traits for many species, which hampers ecological research. Recently, termitologists working with West African termites (West African Termite Taxonomy Initiative) convened for a workshop with the aim of beginning to address this problem. Repeated determination of the same termite samples by the most renowned taxonomists for West African termites identified the huge scale of the problem, as less than 10% of all species could be unambiguously determined to the species level. Intensive discussions and comparisons increased the identification success to around 25% at the end of the workshop. Yet many groups remained problematic and molecular markers and barcoding techniques combined with species delimitation approaches will be needed to help resolve these existing taxonomic problems. Based on the outcome of this workshop, we propose concerted initiatives to address termite taxonomy on a global scale. We are convinced that dedicated workshops on regional taxonomy that follow a similar structured approach, with repeated determination of the same sample, will help overcome the difficulties that termite taxonomy faces. This initiative can also serve as a blueprint for other taxonomical groups that are difficult to identify.

SUBMITTER: Korb J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6369426 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Termite Taxonomy, Challenges and Prospects: West Africa, A Case Example.

Korb Judith J Kasseney Boris D BD Cakpo Yvonne Tété YT Casalla Daza Robin H RH Gbenyedji Jean Norbert K B JNKB Ilboudo Mayouré Edith ME Josens Guy G Koné N'golo Abdoulaye NA Meusemann Karen K Ndiaye Abdoulaye B AB Okweche Simon Idoko SI Poulsen Michael M Roisin Yves Y Sankara Fernand F

Insects 20190116 1

Termites are important ecosystem engineers. Yet they are often difficult to identify due to the lack of reliable species-specific morphological traits for many species, which hampers ecological research. Recently, termitologists working with West African termites (West African Termite Taxonomy Initiative) convened for a workshop with the aim of beginning to address this problem. Repeated determination of the same termite samples by the most renowned taxonomists for West African termites identifi ...[more]

PMID: 30654506

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Project description:BackgroundDeveloping and sustaining a data collection and management system (DCMS) is difficult in malaria-endemic countries because of limitations in internet bandwidth, computer resources and numbers of trained personnel. The premise of this paper is that development of a DCMS in West Africa was a critically important outcome of the West African International Centers of Excellence for Malaria Research. The purposes of this paper are to make that information available to other investigators and to encourage the linkage of DCMSs to international research and Ministry of Health data systems and repositories.MethodsWe designed and implemented a DCMS to link study sites in Mali, Senegal and The Gambia. This system was based on case report forms for epidemiologic, entomologic, clinical and laboratory aspects of plasmodial infection and malarial disease for a longitudinal cohort study and included on-site training for Principal Investigators and Data Managers. Based on this experience, we propose guidelines for the design and sustainability of DCMSs in environments with limited resources and personnel.ResultsFrom 2012 to 2017, we performed biannual thick smear surveys for plasmodial infection, mosquito collections for anopheline biting rates and sporozoite rates and year-round passive case detection for malarial disease in four longitudinal cohorts with 7708 individuals and 918 households in Senegal, The Gambia and Mali. Major challenges included the development of uniform definitions and reporting, assessment of data entry error rates, unstable and limited internet access and software and technology maintenance. Strengths included entomologic collections linked to longitudinal cohort studies, on-site data centres and a cloud-based data repository.ConclusionsAt a time when research on diseases of poverty in low and middle-income countries is a global priority, the resources available to ensure accurate data collection and the electronic availability of those data remain severely limited. Based on our experience, we suggest the development of a regional DCMS. This approach is more economical than separate data centres and has the potential to improve data quality by encouraging shared case definitions, data validation strategies and analytic approaches including the molecular analysis of treatment successes and failures.

Project description:BackgroundThe 2013-2014 West African Ebola outbreak highlighted how the world's weakest health systems threaten global health security and heralded huge support for their recovery. All three Ebola-affected countries had large shortfalls and maldistribution in their health workforce before the crisis, which were made worse by the epidemic. This paper analyzes the investment plans in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea to strengthen their health workforces and assesses their potential contribution to the re-establishment and strengthening of their health systems. The analysis calculates the plans' costs and compares those to likely fiscal space, to assess feasibility.MethodsPublic sector payroll data from 2015 from each country was used for the workforce analysis and does not include the private sector. Data were coded into the major cadres defined by the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88). We estimated health worker training numbers and costs to meet international health worker density targets in the future and used sensitivity analysis to model hypothetical alternate estimates of attrition, drop-outs, and employment rates.ResultsHealth worker-to-population density targets per 1000 population for doctors, nurses, and midwives are only specified in Liberia (1.12) and Guinea's (0.78) investment plans and fall far short of the regional average for Africa (1.33) or international benchmarks of 2.5 per 1000 population and 4.45 for universal health coverage. Even these modest targets translate into substantial scaling-up requirements with Liberia having to almost double, Guinea quadruple, and Sierra Leone having to increase its workforce by seven to tenfold to achieve Liberia and Guinea's targets. Costs per capita to meet the 2.5 per 1000 population density targets with 5% attrition, 10% drop-out, and 75% employment rate range from US$4.2 in Guinea to US$7.9 in Liberia in 2029, with projected fiscal space being adequate to accommodate the proposed scaling-up targets in both countries.ConclusionsAchieving even a modest scale-up of health workforce will require a steady growth in health budgets, a long-term horizon and substantial scale-up of current training institution capacity. Increasing value-for-money in health workforce investments will require more efficient geographical distribution of the health workforce and more consideration to the mix of cadres to be scaled-up.

Dataset Information

Termite Taxonomy, Challenges and Prospects: West Africa, A Case Example.

Publications

Termite Taxonomy, Challenges and Prospects: West Africa, A Case Example.

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