Avian haemosporidians are a group of apicomplexan parasites belonging chiefly to three genera: Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon. In birds, these organisms can behave much like the malaria parasites that afflict humans, invading blood cells and internal organs, sapping host condition, and in severe cases reducing survival and reproductive success. Their effects ripple outward into population dynamics, migration behavior, and even the structure of whole bird communities. For decades, ecologists have worked to map which insect vectors carry which parasite lineages, because transmission is the hinge on which the entire host-parasite system turns. Mosquitoes, Culicoides biting midges, louse flies, and black flies are the recognized vectors, each genus of parasite showing affinities for particular insect groups and particular bird hosts.

Leptoconops is a genus of haematophagous biting midges in the family Ceratopogonidae, closely related to the better-known Culicoides midges that are established vectors of avian Haemoproteus. Despite this kinship, Leptoconops midges have never been systematically implicated in avian malaria transmission, and no previous study had molecularly screened them for haemosporidian infections. That gap is precisely what motivated the research team, led by Javier Carbonero and Martina Ferraguti of the Estación Biológica de Doñana, a research institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in Seville, together with colleagues affiliated with the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública.

The scale of the fieldwork reflects the difficulty of the question. During 2024, the researchers collected a total of 5,417 female Leptoconops midges across sites in Andalusia, taking advantage of the fact that only female midges take blood meals and can therefore plausibly acquire and transmit blood parasites. Each specimen was morphologically identified to species, a labor-intensive step that matters because vector competence and host preferences can differ sharply even between close relatives. The midges were then grouped into 203 pools for molecular analysis, a pooling strategy that balances laboratory workload against the sensitivity needed to detect low-level infections in wild-caught insects.

The molecular heart of the study is a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) protocol targeting the cytochrome b gene, the standard DNA barcode region for avian haemosporidians. Nested PCR uses two successive rounds of amplification with two pairs of primers, dramatically increasing sensitivity and allowing researchers to detect the minute quantities of parasite DNA that may persist in an insect after a blood meal has been digested. Positive amplicons were then sequenced, and the resulting DNA barcodes were compared against reference databases to assign each parasite to a genus and, where possible, to a known lineage with a documented host range. This lineage-level resolution is what gives the study its ecological punch: many haemosporidian lineages have been catalogued from specific bird species, so finding a lineage inside a midge hints at which birds the midge may have bitten.

Eight of the 203 pools tested positive for haemosporidian DNA. The positive pools corresponded to two of the Leptoconops species examined, Leptoconops communis and Leptoconops nigrithorax, indicating that more than one member of the genus encounters these parasites in the wild. The identified parasites spanned all three target genera. Among the Haemoproteus detections were Haemoproteus noctuae, corresponding to the lineage CIRCUM01, and an unidentified Haemoproteus species of the lineage COLPAL01. The Plasmodium findings included Plasmodium matutinum, the well-characterized lineage LINN1, while Leucocytozoon was represented by the lineages COLIV04 and AEMO02. In addition to these known barcodes, the team uncovered two lineages that had never been recorded before, which they designated Plasmodium P_LEPTO01 and Haemoproteus H_LEPTO01, expanding the global catalogue of avian haemosporidian genetic diversity.

The known host associations of the detected lineages are where the story becomes genuinely suggestive. Haemoproteus noctuae, for example, is a parasite associated with owls and other birds, and lineages such as LINN1 and COLIV04 have been documented from particular avian hosts in previous surveys. By matching the lineages found in the midges to their known bird hosts, the researchers can infer, indirectly, which avian species Leptoconops midges may have fed upon. This approach, sometimes framed within the broader use of insect-derived DNA as a sampling tool, effectively turns each infected midge into a tiny record of both a bird-parasite interaction and a midge feeding choice. It is an indirect inference rather than a direct blood-meal identification, but it provides testable hypotheses about the feeding ecology of a genus whose biting habits remain poorly documented in many regions.

The authors are careful, and appropriately so, about what the results do and do not demonstrate. Detecting parasite DNA in an insect does not establish vector competence, the ability of a vector to support the parasite’s full developmental cycle and transmit it to a new host. Haemosporidian parasites undergo a complex development within a competent vector, including sexual reproduction, invasion of the insect’s gut wall, production of infective sporozoites, and migration to the salivary glands. Parasite DNA could, in principle, simply reflect the digestion of an infected blood meal without any subsequent parasite development. The researchers explicitly state that vector competence has not been demonstrated and that the potential role of Leptoconops in transmission is unknown and merits further investigation. Disentangling genuine biological transmission from mere mechanical carriage of DNA will require experimental infection studies, dissection of midge tissues, and detection of parasite developmental stages rather than DNA alone.

Even with those caveats, the study carries weight for several reasons. First, it establishes a previously unrecorded interaction between a widespread genus of biting midges and avian haemosporidian parasites, adding Leptoconops to the short list of insect groups in which these parasites have been molecularly detected. Second, the diversity of parasites found, spanning Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, and Leucocytozoon, suggests that the encounters are not a rare accident of a single parasite species but a broader pattern involving multiple parasite lineages and at least two midge species. Third, the discovery of two novel lineages underscores how much undocumented parasite diversity circulates in wild bird communities and their vectors, and how vector-focused sampling can surface it. Fourth, the work has practical implications: if Leptoconops midges prove to be competent vectors, current models of avian malaria transmission, which lean heavily on mosquitoes and Culicoides, would need revision, with consequences for understanding disease dynamics in bird populations, the risks faced by vulnerable species, and even the epidemiology of zoonotic or wildlife pathogens in shared landscapes.

The research was conducted by a team based at the Estación Biológica de Doñana in Seville, with funding from projects including ARBOPREVENT, supported by Fundación La Caixa, a national research project financed by Spain’s Ministry of Science and European regional funds, and the Severo Ochoa excellence program. The work formed part of a broader research effort on vector ecology in southern Spain, where wetland habitats concentrate both bird diversity and biting insects. As the authors conclude, the findings suggest real interactions between Leptoconops midges and infected avian hosts, and they call for further studies to determine whether these midges are incidental carriers or genuine players in the transmission of avian malaria. For now, a genus of tiny midges, long noted mainly for the irritating bites of its females, has earned a place on the watch list of avian disease ecology, and the search for its true role in the parasite’s life cycle is only beginning.

Subject of Research: Molecular detection of avian haemosporidian parasites in Leptoconops biting midges

Article Title: First molecular detection of avian haemosporidian parasites in Leptoconops (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) biting midges

Article References: Carbonero, J., González, M. A., Magallanes, S., Paun-Tanase, D. I., Martínez-de la Puente, J., Figuerola, J., & Ferraguti, M. (2026). First molecular detection of avian haemosporidian parasites in Leptoconops (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) biting midges. Parasites & Vectors. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13071-026-07713-6

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s13071-026-07713-6

Keywords: avian malaria, haemosporidian parasites, Leptoconops, biting midges, Ceratopogonidae, Plasmodium, Haemoproteus, Leucocytozoon, vector ecology, cytochrome b, nested PCR, Andalusia

The study, published in the Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, set out to answer a deceptively simple question: does the amount of supervision children receive at home relate to their digital competence? To do so, the team assessed pupils across the five areas of the European Union’s DigComp framework, the continent’s standard yardstick for digital skills. These areas cover information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving. The framework, now in its version 2.2, has evolved from a checklist of instrumental computer skills into a model emphasising critical thinking, responsible digital citizenship and emerging concerns such as artificial intelligence, data verification and digital wellbeing.

The researchers used a quantitative, survey-based methodology. A purpose-designed questionnaire was validated by ten experts in digital competence, who rated the importance, relevance and clarity of each indicator on a four-point Likert scale. Reliability analysis returned a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.906 for the full instrument, a value conventionally regarded as very good, with dimension-level values ranging from 0.741 for Information to 0.848 for Content Creation. Data were collected electronically between May and July 2023, with written authorisation from school management, active parental consent and pupil assent obtained before participation, in line with the Declaration of Helsinki.

The sample was drawn through cluster sampling of intact sixth-grade classrooms, the final year of Spanish primary education. Boys made up 50.4 percent of participants and girls 49.6 percent, with 94.7 percent of the children younger than twelve. Most pupils, 68.5 percent, came from urban catchment areas, and 73.5 percent came from medium-to-high socio-economic contexts. Descriptive statistics and analyses of variance, computed with SPSS, were used to test whether digital competence differed according to gender and, crucially, according to how much supervision children reported receiving from parents or guardians.

The supervision picture was striking. Sixty percent of the children said they were always supervised when using their devices, 36.7 percent said they were supervised sometimes, and only 3.2 percent said they were never supervised. Nearly all of them, 99.2 percent, used their devices at home, and 98.9 percent had an internet connection there. Devices were overwhelmingly used in the family environment, reported by 86.8 percent of pupils, while 68.3 percent also used them with friends. The data confirm what earlier European studies had suggested: the home, not the school, remains the primary arena where young children learn to navigate digital technology.

Across the five DigComp areas, pupils reported a generally medium level of competence, with clear strengths and weaknesses. In the Information dimension, children scored well on finding information with search engines and selecting relevant results, but the trend turned negative when they were asked to compare different sources or judge whether what they found was reliable. Communication was the strongest area, with high marks for awareness of the risks of sharing information online and for safeguarding privacy. Safety also scored satisfactorily, with nearly two-thirds of children saying they protected their devices well. The weakest area was Content Creation, where pupils reported limited ability to produce presentations, audio files, videos or cloud-based documents, and where awareness of copyright was patchy. Problem solving revealed a telling deficit: children showed little initiative when technology simply stopped working.

The most provocative findings emerged when the researchers cross-referenced supervision with competence. In the Information and Problem Solving dimensions, pupils who were always supervised reflected more on the information they found online, scoring 3.18 on the study’s scale compared with 2.88 for those supervised only sometimes. Supervised children also better understood why teachers restrict technology use at school. But the pattern reversed in Communication: children who were never supervised interacted more through communication tools and were more adept at sharing files and content, suggesting that trial-and-error self-learning flourishes when adults step back. Unsupervised children also claimed greater knowledge of how to avoid cyberbullying, scoring 3.92 against 3.20 for always-supervised peers, though they were simultaneously more careless with privacy.

The authors interpret this apparent paradox through the lens of parental mediation theory, which has shifted from restrictive control towards models of digital co-responsibility. Supervision without genuine training in technology use, they caution, risks enclosing children in an overprotective bubble, leaving them unprepared when they eventually socialise and communicate more freely online. Conversely, unsupervised children appear to learn experimentally, solving everyday problems through personal trial and error, but at the cost of riskier privacy habits. The study also found no statistically reliable gender differences in digital competence, a null result consistent with recent international evidence from the OECD and the IEA’s ICILS assessment showing that gender gaps, where they exist, are small, domain-specific and highly dependent on school-level conditions.

The findings land in a context of documented urgency. According to the European Commission’s Digital Economy and Society Index, 36 percent of Spain’s population lacks basic digital skills, with minors from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds particularly affected, and the Commission projects that highly qualified workers will account for 43 percent of total labour demand by 2030. Spanish national statistics show that 67.6 percent of Andalusian children own mobile phones and 89.1 percent access the internet frequently. Yet education policy has largely focused on equipping schools with hardware while neglecting the training of pupils and, crucially, their families. Previous research in Norway, Kosovo and Russia has already shown that socio-economic circumstances, home resources and geographic factors predict children’s digital competence; this study adds the quality and consistency of parental supervision to that list of decisive variables.

The researchers conclude that family supervision does influence the development of digital competence in primary school children, but that supervision alone is not enough. Families, they argue, need specialised training to acquire the digital skills required to guide children effectively, particularly in the weakest domains of Content Creation and Information evaluation, where vulnerabilities to disinformation and unsafe practices concentrate. They recommend an upper-primary curriculum offering all pupils balanced opportunities in information handling, collaboration, computational thinking and critical evaluation, alongside school-supported, discussion-based co-use of technology at home. The team acknowledges that its results come from a single Spanish region and cannot be statistically generalised elsewhere, and it calls for longitudinal and mixed-methods research to test whether targeted classroom tasks and supervision routines can close the domain-specific gaps. For now, the message for parents is nuanced but clear: watching over a child’s screen time matters, but knowing what to do with that watchfulness matters even more.

Subject of Research: The influence of family supervision on the digital competence of primary education students across the five DigComp areas

Article Title: Family supervision and digital competence in primary education students

Article References: Ortiz-Colón, A. M., Rodríguez-Moreno, J., & Agreda-Montoro, M. (2025). Family supervision and digital competence in primary education students. Journal of New Approaches in Educational Research, 14(1), Article 24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s44322-025-00044-x

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s44322-025-00044-x

Keywords: digital competence, family supervision, primary education, DigComp, parental mediation, ICT, children, online safety, digital literacy, Andalusia, content creation, problem solving

Researchers Nuria Cordero-Ramos and Macarena Hernández-Ramírez of Pablo de Olavide University in Seville carried out fieldwork between October 2022 and November 2024 in a village they call Monte Verde, a pseudonym protecting the community’s identity. Women make up just over 55 percent of its population, and dense kinship networks centered on four or five families shape its social and economic life. The researchers combined participant observation, 37 recorded in-depth interviews averaging 90 minutes, informal conversations, two discussion groups, and two training workshops with local women. Data were analyzed using grounded theory alongside content analysis, with attention to preserving participants’ voices, expressions, and silences. All names of people and places were changed to guarantee confidentiality.

The central case is Bar La Fuente, run since 1988 by Juana and Pepe, both village natives whose three adult children still help on weekends. The researchers found that although the establishment is publicly known as “Pepe’s bar,” its daily operation depends overwhelmingly on the continuous, multifunctional labour of Juana, her daughters Marta and Clara, her daughter-in-law Janne, and two longtime kitchen employees. The discrepancy between public attribution and actual workload, the authors argue, reveals a gendered moral economy in which women’s contributions are naturalized as “help” or family duty rather than recognized as essential work deserving of rights, recognition, or redistribution.

The kitchen emerges as the study’s most revealing site. When Juana described her cooking to the researchers, she emphasized that everything came from the village itself—the potatoes, the ham, the oil—and that visitors told her the food “tastes like home.” Far from a purely culinary setting, the kitchen operates as a space where food preparation, emotion management, and the negotiation of scarcity converge to produce the atmosphere of closeness that tourists read as authentic rural hospitality. On a Monday morning after a busy weekend, Juana apologized for having only eggs and ham left, yet the gesture of giving what there was reaffirmed an ethic of care rooted in rural moral economies. Scarcity, the authors note, becomes an opportunity to reaffirm generosity and attentiveness, values central to the bar’s reputation.

The researchers describe this as anticipatory and emotional labour. When a table of fourteen booked, Juana began preparing on Thursday, sometimes earlier, “because she doesn’t want anyone to leave disappointment,” as her daughter Clara explained. Drawing on feminist theories of care, particularly Joan Tronto’s ethics of care and Hazel Tucker’s work on the emotional performance of hospitality, the authors show that affective availability—remembering customers’ preferences, adjusting cooking to village rhythms, projecting warmth under pressure—constitutes a core productive asset of the business. From the perspective of social reproduction theory associated with Silvia Federici and Tithi Bhattacharya, this largely unpaid and naturalized labour sustains not just one family bar but the entire tourism model on which the village depends.

Beyond the kitchen, the study documents what the authors call women’s invisible management. Juana described a rhythm with no rest: after serving, preparation for the next day begins immediately, encompassing shopping, cleaning, and organization. Clara, despite holding two other jobs and preparing for competitive exams, manages suppliers, inventories, and coordination, rising at six in the morning and not returning home until after dinner. Marta cancels plans with friends whenever the family needs her, framing the sacrifice as inevitable. The authors connect these patterns to research showing that family businesses rely on women’s unpaid or underpaid labour, producing poorly professionalized management models and heightened vulnerability. Even Janne, a northern European migrant originally hired for peak season, navigates a division of labour in which men gravitate toward financial tasks while women absorb the physical and emotional burden of service.

Crucially, the study does not portray these women as passive victims. Following anthropologists Laura Ahearn and Saba Mahmood, the authors analyze their actions as situated agency—a capacity to act that emerges within, rather than outside of, gendered obligations. Juana’s coordination of household, business, and community, Clara’s logistical command of the supply chain, and even Janne’s humorous direction of her father-in-law all demonstrate judgment, creativity, and decision-making. Yet this agency operates within constraints that limit recognition and authority. The women’s pluriactivity—juggling bar work, domestic duties, emotional mediation, and external employment—intensifies workloads without translating into greater decision-making power, echoing the capability approach of Martha Nussbaum, which asks what people are genuinely able to be and do.

The women’s work also extends into the village square, where emotional availability becomes community care. Juana regularly steps outside during peak hours to check on elderly neighbors, exchange news, or offer help, sustaining a social fabric that tourists interpret as authentic village life. The authors argue that this authenticity is not spontaneous but the product of sustained affective labour, consistent with research showing that community cohesion in post-crisis rural Spain increasingly depends on invisible relational work carried disproportionately by women. Clara’s frustration during a busy weekend captures the tension: the village insists the bar cannot close, tourists expect attention, and the women feel they must be available all the time. The study interprets this as affective overexposure—community expectations and tourism demands intersecting to produce a form of labour that is rarely acknowledged as work at all.

Perhaps most consequential are the generational tensions the study documents. Younger women value the bar as a space of sociability and identity but recognize the personal costs of a model demanding total availability. Clara, who studies so she does not “end up like my mother, always tired, always here,” embodies a refusal to reproduce a limiting model, while her sister’s observation that the village and tourists both expect unlimited service reveals the daily dilemma between continuity and exhaustion. The authors interpret these choices, informed by Rita Segato’s analysis of gendered mandates, as forms of situated resistance: not abrupt rupture but gradual reconfiguration through education, mobility, and reduced involvement. Importantly, tourism strengthens the family economy while simultaneously intensifying workloads and constraining younger women’s ability to integrate the business into their own life projects.

The study’s implications reach beyond one mountain bar. The authors call for rural development and tourism policies that recognize the unequally distributed role of care work, support family businesses through training, professionalization, and work–life balance measures, and design generational renewal strategies that incorporate the aspirations of young women. They caution against approaches that portray women’s entrepreneurship as an automatic pathway to empowerment, revealing instead the structural inequalities on which many family-based tourism enterprises depend. While the analysis rests on a single case at a particular moment, the authors argue that its value lies in illuminating social mechanisms—kinship, care, hospitality, and gender—that operate across contemporary rural tourism. In Monte Verde, as the study’s subtitle suggests, the most important work is the work you cannot see.

Subject of Research: Invisible women's care and emotional labour sustaining family-run rural tourism businesses in Andalusia, Spain

Article Title: Women's work and caregiving in rural tourism in Andalusia (Spain): “You can’t see it, but it’s just as important”

Article References: Women's work and caregiving in rural tourism in Andalusia (Spain): “You can’t see it, but it’s just as important”. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41257-026-00163-z

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s41257-026-00163-z

Keywords: rural tourism, women's labour, care work, emotional labour, social reproduction, ethnography, Andalusia, family business, gender inequality, generational renewal, hospitality, moral economy