The new instrument extends the General-University Self-Laboratory Assessment Tool, a spreadsheet-based instrument designed for public health, environmental and veterinary laboratories operating in low- and medium-resource settings. The original tool contained 201 questions covering infrastructure and equipment, administration and training, biorisk management, specimen management and waste management. The cyberbiosecurity extension was developed collaboratively by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and the Georgetown Center for Global Health Science and Security, drawing on a scoping review and an exploratory review of literature on cyberbiosecurity, cybersecurity, data privacy and laboratory information security. Subject-matter experts from the United States and European Union validated the resulting questions. The added section covers risk evaluation, planning and management, infrastructure and systems, and incident response.

Accessibility shaped the instrument’s design. Cyber-SLAT is available in English and French, can be completed electronically or on paper, and requires only basic spreadsheet software rather than specialized installation or an internet connection. The French version was reviewed for linguistic and cultural appropriateness by Moroccan collaborators. Respondents answer each question “Yes,” “No” or “Not Applicable,” can document proposed corrective actions, and receive an automatically generated action plan. For the pilot, researchers treated both “No” and “Not Applicable” as an inability to confirm a capacity. This precautionary rule turns uncertainty into a potential area for improvement, but it means the reported gap counts represent upper-bound estimates rather than confirmed deficiencies. It also means that a response of “Not Applicable” could reflect a function managed above the laboratory, uncertainty about whether a capacity existed, or another situation in which the laboratory could not verify the capacity in question.

Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Health Security and the Biorisk Management Association of Morocco selected the seven sites to span five institutional types: a private clinical diagnostic laboratory, a university research laboratory, a national reference laboratory, a regional analytical and research laboratory, a regional hospital laboratory, a veterinary research laboratory and a private pharmaceutical laboratory. The sample was purposive rather than statistically representative, reflecting available funding and the engagement-intensive design. Selection also prioritized high-containment facilities and laboratories with United States research partnerships. All seven laboratories submitted complete assessments after approximately six weeks of self-assessment supported by virtual training and local assistance. The final analysis was descriptive: no inferential comparison between laboratories was attempted.

Laboratory directors and biosafety officers usually answered the traditional biorisk questions. For the cyberbiosecurity section, laboratories were encouraged to assemble multidisciplinary teams and involve information technology personnel, including network administrators, database administrators and IT support specialists when available. The source does not establish whether IT staff actually participated in every laboratory’s assessment, so their involvement should not be treated as a uniform feature of the pilot. Teams reached internal consensus, although documented evidence was not required for a “Yes” answer. The findings varied sharply. Three laboratories recorded more than 200 affirmative responses across the full assessment, one recorded 63, and another produced the highest number of “Not Applicable” answers, with 51. The researchers suggested that institutional structures may explain some of this variation, because cybersecurity governance, information technology administration and data security are sometimes managed by a university or parent organization beyond the laboratory’s direct visibility. Such arrangements do not necessarily indicate absent capacity, but they can leave laboratory personnel unclear about protections covering their systems and data.

Risk evaluation was the strongest cyberbiosecurity section. Laboratories generally reported conducting diagnostics involving high-consequence pathogens, performing sequencing, maintaining pathogen inventories and using formal agreements for research collaborations and data sharing. Yet none of the seven laboratories could affirm that it had identified key hazards where physical laboratory processes intersect with digital systems. This universal non-affirmation suggests that laboratories were more familiar with biological risks and external collaborations than with the distinctive vulnerabilities created by connections among equipment, software, networks and data. It does not demonstrate that no laboratory had considered such interfaces; rather, none could confirm that this specific capacity was in place. The weakest area was incident response, although it contained only four questions. No laboratory could confirm having a cyberbiosecurity incident response plan, and critical gaps also included unconfirmed processes for notifying law enforcement, evaluating incidents after the fact and sharing lessons learned.

The other severe gaps were concentrated in planning, management and infrastructure. Six of seven laboratories could not affirm designated cyberbiosecurity responsibilities, regular staff training in cyber, data and information security, a threat-mitigation policy, or training on risks associated with internet-connected devices, generative artificial intelligence chatbots, online platforms and personal devices connected to institutional networks. Critical technical items included whether staff browser and application access to the internet was restricted, whether recognized security standards were used for storing and transferring sensitive data, whether an end-to-end map of laboratory and pathogen data flows existed, and whether laboratory information management system data could be accessed through additional health information systems. These results do not prove that every participating facility lacked the underlying safeguards. They show that laboratories could not confirm those capabilities through the self-assessment.

Corrective actions focused heavily on high-risk activities, key documents and policies. Proposed measures included assigning cyberbiosecurity responsibilities to existing personnel, organizing annual awareness sessions, creating threat-mitigation standard operating procedures, restricting or monitoring browser use, adopting data-sharing and encryption protocols, mapping data flows, establishing law-enforcement contacts and arranging post-incident reviews. Four laboratories entered cyberbiosecurity corrective actions directly into the tool, while all seven participated in a collective master plan developed during a two-day meeting in Rabat. Six of its eight actions were designated high priority, with proposed timelines ranging from one to six months. The plan linked actions to relevant ISO/IEC 27001 sections and assigned responsibility to laboratory leadership, institutional information systems departments or cyberbiosecurity officers who were still to be appointed. The action plans were planned for implementation over an 18-month performance period, but the study did not verify their execution.

The dialogue, which included representatives from Morocco’s General Directorate of Information Systems Security, also produced a collective strategy centered on compliance with national cybersecurity laws and standards, management-supported policies interoperable across laboratories, and development of Morocco as a regional cyberbiosecurity reference center. Participants identified existing legal and quality-management frameworks, accreditation processes and the new government linkage as strengths, while naming limited budgets, shortages of qualified personnel, absent policies, user resistance and insufficient time for planning as weaknesses. Risk exercises using a likelihood-impact method rated data breaches through subcontractors, unauthorized access through shared printers and copiers, and equipment theft above phishing. The study’s authors argue that assigning responsibility, training staff, restricting sensitive-device use and preparing incident procedures could address practical risks even when sophisticated technical safeguards remain unavailable. The assessment itself also created a channel between laboratory personnel and Morocco’s national cybersecurity authority, a relationship the researchers said had not previously existed for these participants.

Because the study was a small, cross-sectional pilot based on self-reported responses, it cannot establish national prevalence, track changes over time or determine whether the action plans were implemented. The cyberbiosecurity questions had not been formally evaluated for content validity, reliability or inter-rater agreement, and the pilot lacked a hazard metric for questions where an affirmative answer might itself indicate danger. The authors also stress that no pre- or post-intervention comparison was conducted. Nevertheless, the completed assessments and collective plan provide an empirical starting point for a field often dominated by theoretical threats and technical scenarios. They also show why ready-made cybersecurity standards alone may not suffice: in the Moroccan sample, laboratories needed practical tools, local partnerships and cross-functional dialogue before technical controls could be implemented and sustained.

Subject of Research: Pilot assessment of laboratory cyberbiosecurity capacity across seven Moroccan institutions

Article Title: Evaluating laboratory cyberbiosecurity capacity in Morocco: development and pilot implementation of the cyber self-laboratory assessment tool (Cyber-SLAT)

Article References: Linder, A. G., Grégoire, V., Baassi, L., Lemrabet, S., & Sorrell, E. M. (2026). Evaluating laboratory cyberbiosecurity capacity in Morocco: development and pilot implementation of the cyber self-laboratory assessment tool (Cyber-SLAT). Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology, 14, Article 1947925. https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2026.1947925

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2026.1947925

Keywords: cyberbiosecurity, Morocco, laboratory safety, Cyber-SLAT, biorisk management, cybersecurity, information security, incident response, laboratory governance, data stewardship, Evaluating, laboratory

The study focuses on a historic district of Figuig, a semi-urban oasis described by the authors as one of the region’s most emblematic cases. The district is suffering severe deterioration, while available documentary records and reports are described as unusable for effective management. Technically, the proposed workflow combines City Information Modelling methodologies with OpenBIM and OpenGIS within a shared digital environment.

Its intended contribution is to bring relevant heritage-management information into a structured framework that can be adapted to other resource-constrained contexts affected by climate change. The authors position the Figuig case as a reproducible reference approach for similar historic settlements. The work responds to recurring requests from decision-makers for tools that are less costly and scalable while remaining compatible with local constraints.

The published research summary presents a developed methodology and its rationale; it does not report measured improvements in heritage condition, a quantified reduction in climate risk or long-term performance results. The central result is therefore methodological: an open, shared digital structure designed to support heritage management in a climate-affected oasis town with limited technical and financial resources.

Subject of Research: An OpenBIM and OpenGIS workflow for digital heritage management in Figuig Oasis, Morocco

Article Title: City information modelling for preserving heritage under environmental vulnerability in the oasis of Figuig

Article References: El Ganadi, Y., Idrissi Gartoumi, K., & Chahbi, M. (2026). City information modelling for preserving heritage under environmental vulnerability in the oasis of Figuig. Discover Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43621-026-04940-w

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s43621-026-04940-w

Keywords: Figuig Oasis, heritage management, City Information Modelling, OpenBIM, OpenGIS, digital workflow, climate vulnerability, historic districts, Morocco, conservation, City, information

The collection, launched in 2021 by Vegetation Classification and Survey and the African Section of the International Association for Vegetation Science, contains studies from Morocco, Benin, South Africa and Namibia. It therefore covers three of Africa’s major regions rather than the entire continent.

At the continental scale, available classifications are broad physiognomic systems. White’s 1983 classification recognized 16 natural vegetation types, while a remote-sensing-based system by Mayaux and colleagues in 2003 grouped vegetation into five main types. The review reports that comprehensive fine-scale overviews exist for relatively few countries or territories, including Morocco and South Africa, Lesotho and Eswatini, while many other studies address local areas or selected vegetation types.

African flora and vegetation data are less available and accessible than in Europe and the Americas, according to the review. It identifies data availability, language barriers, limited research funding and political instability as obstacles. African Union member states committed in 2006 to spend 1% of gross domestic product on research and development, but the continent’s funding reached 0.42% in 2019, compared with a global average of 1.7%.

Vegetation-plot records are particularly sparse in international databases. The review cites the working version of sPlot 4.0, which contains 45,202 plots from African countries out of 2,531,784 worldwide, or 1.8%, although Africa covers 22.5% of Earth’s ice-free surface. Thirty regional databases contributed data from 38 African countries, but some countries had no plots in sPlot. Namibia and Morocco had relatively good coverage, while South Africa’s National Vegetation Database contained more than 46,000 plot-based records but had not joined sPlot.

Two studies examined environmental gradients. In Namibia, Naftal and colleagues classified vegetation from 1,986 relevés into 12 units and used a Random Forest model to project distributions under 2080 climatic conditions. The model achieved 82% prediction accuracy and projected greater dominance of broad-leaved and degraded thornbush savannas, while mountain, dwarf-shrub and dry thornbush savanna units would decrease in area or disappear. These are model projections rather than observed changes.

In South Africa’s Tankwa Karoo National Park, Samuels and colleagues compared three vegetation types across elevations from 338 to 1,147 metres above sea level. Species composition and environmental variables distinguished the habitats, while slope and rockiness were associated with variation within vegetation types. In Benin’s Pendjari Biosphere Reserve, Assèdé and colleagues analysed 202 Braun-Blanquet relevés, identifying 249 species in 11 associations associated with a dryland-to-wetland moisture gradient.

The other studies examined traditional agroecosystems in Morocco, land-cover change on Beninese inselbergs and Karstveld vegetation in Namibia. Chakkour and colleagues recorded 209 species in 94 relevés across six Moroccan study areas. Ayeko and colleagues used Sentinel-2 and Spot-5 imagery at 10-metre resolution to assess land cover from 2003 to 2018, finding expansion of savanna, grassland, fields, fallow land and plantations alongside conversion of natural vegetation. Strohbach and Strohbach classified Namibian Karstveld from 889 relevés into four major types and formally described 17 new associations.

The authors recommend stronger cross-country collaboration, expanded plot sampling, improved databases, training and development of an African Vegetation Archive. They cite Europe’s long-term Vegetation Survey as an example of cooperation, while emphasizing that Africa’s scale, resource constraints and existing regional initiatives require a tailored approach. The review itself is explicitly incomplete and regionally biased, so the collection does not constitute a comprehensive assessment of African vegetation.

Subject of Research: Continental gaps and regional advances in African vegetation classification

Article Title: African vegetation studies: introduction to a Special Collection

Article References: Guuroh, R. T., Brown, L. R., Alvarez, M., Finckh, M., Schmiedel, U., Tsheboeng, G., & Dengler, J. (2024). African vegetation studies: introduction to a Special Collection. Vegetation Classification and Survey, 5, 279-288. https://doi.org/10.3897/vcs.143360

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/VCS.143360

Keywords: African vegetation, vegetation classification, vegetation plots, sPlot database, remote sensing, phytosociology, Namibia, South Africa, Benin, Morocco, African, vegetation

The research was part of an ongoing investigation of benthic macroinvertebrates in the southern Draa basin, which extends southward from the High Atlas Mountains into the Sahara. Investigators sampled 17 sites across the basin, including sites that differed in altitude, temperature and water conductivity. The analysis focused on three locations in the western Upper Draa: Ounilla 1, a non-saline tributary; Ounilla 2, a saline right tributary of Oued El Maleh that yielded the mayflies; and Oued El Maleh, a lower-flow stream with temperate water.

At each site, researchers collected macroinvertebrates in March and June 2022 using a 0.20 m by 0.25 m Surber sampler with 500 μm mesh. Twenty sampling spots covering the available microhabitats were sampled at each location. Conductivity was measured with a WTW MultiLine Multi 3510 IDS device, and specimens were preserved in 96% alcohol and sorted under a binocular microscope. Ounilla 2 had conductivity of 19,330 µS/cm in March and 19,660 µS/cm in June, compared with 3,890 and 2,590 µS/cm at Ounilla 1. Conductivity in Oued El Maleh remained high at 10,570 and 12,100 µS/cm.

The collections at the three focused sites contained seven mayfly species and 24 C. vanharteni nymphs. All 24 were collected at Ounilla 2 in March 2022; none was recorded there in June or at the other two sites. Four specimens were deposited on slides at the Museum of Natural History in Marrakech. Morphological examination identified the Moroccan larvae as C. vanharteni, a species described in 2008 from the United Arab Emirates and subsequently reported from Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan.

The larval diagnosis included the absence of hindwing pads, lateral spines on abdominal tergites VIII and IX and sometimes VII, a two-segmented maxillary palp, elongated claws bearing two rows of abundant short teeth, and double-lamellate gills in which the upper lamella is approximately half the size of the lower one. The two-segmented maxillary palp distinguished the species from other Cloeon species previously reported in the Maghreb, while its short-toothed claws separated it from members of the Cloeon dipterum group, including C. dipterum and C. peregrinator.

The researchers complemented the morphological analysis with DNA barcoding. They sequenced a 658-base-pair fragment of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit 1 gene from one Moroccan specimen of C. vanharteni, one Israeli specimen, three Moroccan specimens of C. peregrinator and one Moroccan specimen of the outgroup Procloeon stagnicola. The dataset also included three additional C. vanharteni sequences from Israel retrieved from GenBank on June 8, 2023, giving nine sequences in total. Analyses used pairwise genetic distances, a Bayesian COI gene tree and the ASAP distance-based species-delimitation method.

All five C. vanharteni sequences, including the Moroccan sequence, formed a strongly supported monophyletic lineage that ASAP identified as a distinct species. The three C. peregrinator sequences likewise formed a strongly supported monophyletic lineage. Mean uncorrected COI p-distance within C. vanharteni was 1.6%, with a range of 0–2.5%, while the mean within C. peregrinator was 0.5%, with a range of 0–0.8%. The mean distance between the two lineages was 17.8%, with a range of 17.3–18.3%.

Ecological observations were limited to the Moroccan sites. The larvae occurred in a low-flow, semi-arid stream environment with a pebble, gravel and sand bottom, cold winters and hot summers. Surveys conducted from 2020 to 2023 at lower-conductivity streams in the basin—including Iriri, Ait Douchene and Ounilla 1—did not detect the species, including at the neighbouring stream with the same name as Ounilla 2 but lower conductivity. These observations associate the local occurrence with high conductivity, but the study did not experimentally test the species’ physiological tolerance or establish that salinity was the cause of its restricted distribution.

The record expands the known distribution of C. vanharteni into the Maghreb and shows that the species was present at one Moroccan site during the survey period. Its broader regional history remains incompletely sampled because standing-water habitats in the Maghreb have received less attention than running waters, and the Moroccan detection came from only one saline stream within a basin-scale field study. The findings therefore document a first regional occurrence and an association with a highly conductive habitat, rather than establishing the species’ wider abundance, environmental limits or ecological effects in Morocco.

Subject of Research: First Maghreb field record and molecular identification of the mayfly Cloeon vanharteni

Article Title: First report of Cloeon vanharteni Gattolliat & Sartori, 2008 ( Baetidae , Ephemeroptera ) in the Maghreb

Article References: Benlasri, M., Vuataz, L., Gattolliat, J.-L., Beermann, A. J., Leßner, H., El Alami El Moutaouakil, M., Ghamizi, M., & Berger, E. (2023). First report of Cloeon vanharteni Gattolliat & Sartori, 2008 (Baetidae, Ephemeroptera) in the Maghreb. Alpine Entomology, 7, 143-152. https://doi.org/10.3897/alpento.7.109562

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/alpento.7.109562

Keywords: Cloeon vanharteni, mayflies, Ephemeroptera, Morocco, Maghreb, Draa basin, freshwater macroinvertebrates, saline streams, DNA barcoding, COI, First, report

The species has a wingspan of 16.5–23.0 millimetres. Its head, thorax and tegulae range from dark yellow to reddish brown. The forewings are reddish brown with diffuse, lighter reddish-pink transverse fasciae at one quarter and one half of the wing, together with a rounded reddish subapical spot. The hindwings are light grey with light-brown margins, and the fringe is yellowish brown.

One of the clearest external features is the recurved labial palpus. Its second segment is unmodified, while the acute third segment is white to yellowish white, with a light-brown apex. Within Metanarsia, the combination of reddish-brown forewings and recurved labial palps distinguishes M. moroccana from species with comparable wing patterns, which have straight palps, and from species with recurved palps, which differ in forewing colour.

Comparisons with three reddish-brown congeners further separate the new species. Metanarsia kosakewitshi is lighter and uniformly reddish brown, lacks the transverse fasciae and has straight labial palps. Metanarsia guberlica is brighter, has distinct reddish irroration and gently recurved labial palps. Metanarsia dahurica has a pale subdorsal patch around the middle of the forewing and a distinctly broadened, straight second segment of the labial palpus. Male genitalia also distinguish M. moroccana: its phallus is shorter than the valva, whereas these structures are equal in length in the related species.

The male genitalia of M. moroccana include a tongue-shaped uncus, a slender rod-like gnathos and a nearly equilateral triangular tegumen. The digitate valva has a rounded apex and extends to the tip of the uncus. The sacculus is twice as broad in its basal half as in its distal half and bears three short posterior teeth; it is narrower than the sacculus of M. kosakewitshi and shorter than the saccus of M. guberlica. Unlike M. dahurica, the new species has teeth on the sacculus. Female genitalia remain unknown because no female specimens were available.

The authors classified the species within the M. incertella group on the basis of its well-developed apical sacculus teeth and recurved labial palps with an unmodified second segment. M. incertella has a short phallus and a comparatively narrow saccus with three apical teeth, but it differs from M. moroccana in having a deeply apically emarginated uncus, a lateral tooth on the sacculus, a different forewing pattern and much longer labial palps.

Adults were recorded flying in early October, and the authors describe M. moroccana as apparently an obligatorily autumnal species, a timing they consider unique within Metanarsia. This conclusion is based on the reported adult records rather than a multi-season sampling programme. The host plant is unknown. More broadly, the study notes that only M. alphitodes has a known host plant, identified as a species of Nitraria.

The description also revises the context in which Metanarsia is classified. A first revision reviewed and illustrated ten species, five further species were described later, and two originally placed in the genus were subsequently transferred to Catatinagma and Chrysoesthia. The genus currently contains thirteen Palaearctic species, mainly in arid regions extending from northwestern Africa to Mongolia and northern China, although M. moroccana increases that documented total by one.

The study cautions that the current concept of Metanarsia remains tentative and based exclusively on morphological evidence. The genus is considered heterogeneous in external and male genitalic characters, and the placement of M. partilella is described as particularly uncertain. The authors state that additional species may be identified as DNA barcoding and collection specimens become available, and that an integrative revision of the tribe Apatetrini may clarify whether some current members should be transferred to other genera. The present species description itself is limited by its very small, male-only type series and the absence of female and biological data.

Subject of Research: Morphological description of a new Metanarsia moth species from Morocco

Article Title: A new species of Metanarsia Staudinger, 1871 ( Lepidoptera , Gelechiidae ) from Morocco

Article References: Bidzilya, O. V. (2022). A new species of Metanarsia Staudinger, 1871 (Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae) from Morocco. Nota Lepidopterologica, 45, 295-303. https://doi.org/10.3897/nl.45.95198

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/nl.45.95198

Keywords: Metanarsia moroccana, new species, taxonomy, Lepidoptera, Gelechiidae, Morocco, male genitalia, species description, species, Metanarsia, Staudinger, scientific research

Researchers retrospectively reviewed cerebrospinal fluid samples sent to the hospital’s Central Virology Laboratory between January 2021 and May 2025. The samples were analyzed with the BIOFIRE FilmArray Meningitis/Encephalitis Panel. The study population comprised 2,645 patients with suspected central nervous system infections, and the investigators collected demographic, microbiological, cytological and biochemical data for analysis in Jamovi version 2.6.26. The study therefore provides a single-center clinical snapshot of syndromic panel findings over the specified period.

Viruses accounted for 49.6% of the 288 microorganism detections, bacteria for 43.4% and C. neoformans/gattii for 7.0%. Streptococcus pneumoniae was the most frequently detected bacterial microorganism, with 83 detections representing 66.4% of bacterial detections. Enterovirus was the leading viral agent, with 36 detections, or 25.2% of viral detections, followed by human herpesvirus 6 with 34 detections, or 23.8%. Herpes simplex virus 1 accounted for 25 viral detections, equivalent to 17.5% of the viral total.

The reported patterns differed by age and care setting. Viral detections were significantly more frequent in children than in adults, with reported proportions of 65.7% and 34.3%, respectively (p<0.001). S. pneumoniae detections were more frequent in intensive-care and emergency departments than in other care settings, at 61.4% and 38.6%, respectively (p=0.006). Cerebrospinal fluid associated with bacterial detections showed a typical pattern of neutrophilic pleocytosis, hypoglycorrhachia and hyperproteinorachia, while findings accompanying viral detections were more heterogeneous. Notably, 70 of the 143 viral detections, or 49.0%, occurred in samples with fewer than 10 white blood cells/mm³.

The authors interpreted the results as evidence that multiplex PCR may have a complementary role in the diagnostic work-up of suspected meningitis and meningoencephalitis, particularly because viral organisms were frequently detected in samples with limited inflammation. The results do not demonstrate improved clinical outcomes, treatment effects or population-wide disease burden. As a retrospective, single-hospital study based on syndromic panel testing, it is also limited in generalizability beyond the sampled patients and does not by itself establish each patient’s final clinical diagnosis or capture pathogens outside the panel’s detected spectrum.

Subject of Research: Epidemiological and etiological patterns detected by syndromic multiplex PCR in suspected meningitis and meningoencephalitis

Article Title: Syndromic multiplex PCR in meningitis and meningoencephalitis: epidemiological patterns and etiological spectrum in 2645 moroccan suspected cases

Article References: Touyar, N., Hafidi, N. E., Slaoui, M., Benchekroun, S., Mahraoui, C., Agarrab, N., Aminou, S., El-Amin, G., Zouaki, A., Siyar, H., Belhaj, N., Farissi, A., Belefquih, B., Harrak, S. E., Ed-Dafali, L., Hilali, S. E., Bnouhanna, W., Oukheda, N., Belkhettab, S., … Kabbaj, H. (2026). Syndromic multiplex PCR in meningitis and meningoencephalitis: epidemiological patterns and etiological spectrum in 2645 moroccan suspected cases. BMC Infectious Diseases. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-026-14502-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12879-026-14502-0

Keywords: meningitis, meningoencephalitis, multiplex PCR, cerebrospinal fluid, Morocco, pathogen detection, viral infections, bacterial meningitis, Syndromic, multiplex, epidemiological, patterns

The study used the official Moroccan Grade 8 school-context file from the 2023 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as TIMSS. Schools, rather than students or teachers, were the unit of analysis because both the outcome and the explanatory variables came from principal questionnaires. The principal-rated outcome asked whether student absenteeism was not a problem, a minor problem, a moderate problem or a serious problem. For the primary statistical comparison, the researchers contrasted serious problems with the other three categories, while also examining the full four-level response as a sensitivity analysis. The common complete-case sample covered 232 of the 250 schools in the file and included 100 serious cases and 132 lower-severity cases.

Because TIMSS uses unequal school weights and a complex sampling design, population estimates incorporated the school weight, while uncertainty was calculated with 150 full jackknife repeated-replication estimates based on the survey’s 75 jackknife zones. The weighted models were binary logistic regressions. Their first specification contained five preselected contextual indicators: the share of pupils from economically disadvantaged homes, rural location, availability of high-speed internet, adequacy of mathematics and science resources, and the school’s emphasis on academic success. These variables represented social composition, geography, infrastructure, resources and academic organization, rather than a data-driven search across the full TIMSS questionnaire. The study was not preregistered, so the final predictor set was theory-guided rather than confirmatory in a preregistration sense.

None of the five contextual indicators remained statistically significant after false-discovery-rate correction within the contextual model. Resource adequacy had a nominal positive association with a serious principal rating, with an odds ratio of 1.81 per weighted standard deviation and a 95% confidence interval of 1.06 to 3.09, but its adjusted p-value was 0.145. Economic disadvantage had an odds ratio of 1.64, with a confidence interval of 0.98 to 2.72, while the point estimates for rural location and internet access were positive and that for academic emphasis was negative. None of these estimates provided a multiplicity-robust independent association in the available data. The authors emphasized that this does not show that contextual conditions are unimportant; the broad indicators may simply have been too indirect or imprecisely measured in a small design-weighted sample.

The analysis then added a two-item indicator combining principals’ reports of teacher lateness and teacher absenteeism. A one-standard-deviation increase in reported teacher-attendance problems was associated with 8.24 times the odds that student absenteeism would be rated serious, with a 95% confidence interval of 3.60 to 18.83 and an adjusted p-value below 0.001. Economic disadvantage also remained associated in this expanded model, with an odds ratio of 2.91 and a 95% confidence interval of 1.25 to 6.79. The association between economic disadvantage became stronger after teacher attendance was included, but the researchers said this might reflect suppression, changed adjustment or instability caused by unequal weights and should not be interpreted as evidence of a causal pathway mediated by teacher attendance.

For an assessment of discrimination, the researchers used regularized logistic regression with Elastic Net penalties and repeated nested cross-validation. The procedure comprised five outer folds repeated 10 times, with four-fold inner validation for choosing regularization strength and the balance between Ridge and L1 penalties. Folds were stratified by the binary outcome and grouped by jackknife zone, reducing the chance that design-linked schools would appear in both training and validation sets. All preprocessing was performed within training folds. Metrics included balanced accuracy, the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, average precision, Brier score, log loss and calibration.

Broad context alone performed almost as poorly as random classification. Its mean balanced accuracy was 0.511 and its ROC area under the curve was 0.499, with average precision of 0.437. Sensitivity was 0.216 and specificity was 0.807, showing that the procedure identified relatively few of the schools whose principals called absenteeism serious. The mean Brier score was 0.258, log loss was 0.715, and the calibration slope was approximately zero. Once the teacher-attendance indicator was included, mean balanced accuracy rose to 0.728, ROC area rose to 0.774 and average precision rose to 0.695. Sensitivity increased from 0.216 to 0.688, while specificity changed only from 0.807 to 0.767. Probability error also fell, with a Brier score of 0.196 and log loss of 0.596.

The performance gain is striking but has a crucial measurement qualification. The principal who rated student absenteeism also rated teacher lateness and teacher absenteeism, using similar problem-severity categories. The added variable therefore shared both the respondent and the attendance domain with the outcome. Its strong association could reflect genuine shared organizational conditions, such as transport disruption, timetable instability, weak supervision or broader strains affecting pupils and staff. It could also partly reflect common-source measurement covariance: a principal with a generally severe assessment style might rate both staff and student attendance problems highly. Independent records would be required to separate those substantive and methodological explanations. Consequently, the results demonstrate incremental information within the questionnaire, not that teacher absenteeism causes student absenteeism.

Several further limitations constrain what the study can establish. It is cross-sectional, and the teacher and student attendance judgements were contemporaneous, so the validation results describe internal discrimination rather than prospective forecasting. The outcome was a principal’s perception of severity, not an administrative rate of recorded absence; it did not reveal the number of missed days, the identity of absent pupils, whether absences were excused or their causes. The raw sample of 232 schools also had a much lower Kish effective sample size of 60.5 because of unequal weighting. Complete-case analysis excluded 18 schools, including 11 with observed outcomes among which the weighted prevalence of serious reports was higher than in the retained sample, although this small, selectively observed group could not support a reliable estimate of bias. A four-category sensitivity analysis broadly supported the teacher-attendance result, but the lowest category contained only 13 schools and the academic-success variable violated the proportional-odds assumption.

Overall, the research identifies a sharp contrast between broad school context and information that is close to the outcome in both content and reporting source. The findings support further attendance research in Morocco using administrative student and teacher records, family information and reports from multiple informants. Such data could test whether the association between staff and student attendance persists when common-principal measurement effects are removed. Repeated or longitudinal observations would also be needed to establish temporal ordering, while larger samples and more specific measures of transport, health, caregiving, seasonal mobility and school attendance practices could clarify why economically disadvantaged schools appear more vulnerable. The current study does not validate the TIMSS item, establish causal effects or provide a forecasting tool, but it shows that how an absence problem is measured—and who reports it—can dramatically alter what appears knowable about school attendance.

Subject of Research: School-level associations with principal-reported student absenteeism in Moroccan Grade 8 schools using TIMSS 2023 data.

Article Title: Principal-reported school absenteeism in Morocco: contextual correlates and same-respondent attendance information in TIMSS 2023

Article References: Elouafi, A., Tammouch, I., Eddarouich, S., & laassar, I. (2026). Principal-reported school absenteeism in Morocco: contextual correlates and same-respondent attendance information in TIMSS 2023. Large-scale Assessments in Education, 14(1), Article 55. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40536-026-00327-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40536-026-00327-5

Keywords: TIMSS 2023, Morocco, school absenteeism, teacher attendance, economic disadvantage, principal reports, large-scale assessment, survey weighting, out-of-sample validation, common-method bias, Principal-reported, school

The study also considered the British Mean Trophic Rank, the German Trophic Index of Macrophytes, Poland’s Macrophyte Index for Rivers and Zambia’s Macrophyte Trophic Ranking scheme when interpreting differences in the ecological meaning assigned to individual species. The central question was whether hydromorphological and ecoregional differentiation helps explain variation in the taxa and indicator values included in Mediterranean indices. Such differences are plausible because macrophyte assemblages depend on multiple abiotic and biotic factors.

Nutrients are important, but altitude, flow velocity, water depth, riverbed width and substrate type also influence the development of aquatic plant communities. The researchers therefore examined not only whether the indices agreed numerically, but also whether the same species carried comparable ecological interpretations in different national systems and whether the systems could be transferred to the HBS basin in Morocco. The analysis combined published index data with an extensive field survey of aquatic and riparian macrophytes at 39 stations in the HBS basin and its tributaries.

Macrophytes were identified using field guides, and scientific names were screened for synonyms and harmonized when necessary so that taxa could be compared consistently with the indices. The three Mediterranean systems differed substantially in taxonomic coverage. IBMR contained 226 indicator taxa, IMF contained 124 and BMS contained 105.

Across all three were 331 species representing 98 families, 66 orders and 24 classes. Potamogetonaceae, Cyperaceae, Ranunculaceae, Amblystegiaceae, Typhaceae and Plantaginaceae were among the most diverse families, while Potamogeton and Ranunculus were the most frequently represented genera. Indicator values were significantly correlated in all three pairwise comparisons, although the strength of the relationships varied.

IBMR and BMS shared 47 taxa and had the strongest association, with an R-squared value of 0.57. IBMR and IMF shared 68 taxa but had the weakest relationship, with an R-squared of 0.30. IMF and BMS shared only 35 taxa and had an R-squared of 0.34.

All three comparisons reported p-values of 0.000. The results indicate that the indices encode partly overlapping ecological concepts, but the limited explanatory power of the regression relationships also shows that their classifications of shared species are not interchangeable. Individual taxa illustrated the practical consequences of moving an index between regions.

The French IBMR assigned lower values than the Spanish IMF to Zannichellia palustris and Potamogeton pectinatus. Both species are commonly associated with nutrient-rich conditions. Germany’s Trophic Index of Macrophytes and Poland’s Macrophyte Index for Rivers classified them as indicators of eutrophic conditions, while Britain’s Mean Trophic Rank described them as tolerant of eutrophication or broadly cosmopolitan.

Potamogeton nodosus, Amblystegium riparium and Lycopus europaeus received more oligotrophic indicator values in Portugal’s BMS than in the French IBMR and Spanish IMF. For Potamogeton nodosus, the authors interpret the differing classifications as evidence that its ecological amplitude may be broader than a single national index suggests. Comparison with the Moroccan survey exposed a more fundamental problem: limited overlap with the floristic reference lists used in Europe.

Only 23 HBS taxa had indicator values in at least one of the three Mediterranean systems. Fourteen appeared in IBMR, while 13 each appeared in BMS and IMF. Those 23 represented only 6.76% of the indicator species in the French index, 10.48% in the Portuguese index and 12.38% in the Spanish index.

Only ten taxa recorded in HBS had British Mean Trophic Rank values, and only eight had German Trophic Index of Macrophytes values. The HBS survey recorded 31 aquatic species, a limited total consistent with previous research on the area’s aquatic flora. The comparison with the richer French assemblage was associated by the authors with the climatic transition from temperate central Europe to arid northern Africa.

Afro-Mediterranean conditions strongly affect stream flows, including the coexistence of perennial and intermittent rivers, and can consequently influence which aquatic species occur. The low similarity between Moroccan communities and the floristic reference lists of the three Euro-Mediterranean indices therefore reflects more than the absence of a few characteristic species. It involves a restricted regional flora, differing species distributions and the physical conditions that structure river habitats.

On this basis, the study concludes that Euro-Mediterranean trophic indices cannot be applied easily to Afro-Mediterranean rivers, particularly in the HBS basin of Morocco. The evidence supports the conclusion that ecological amplitudes and species optima vary among Mediterranean ecoregions and that indicator taxa differ among countries. The authors consequently favor developing a biotic-integrity approach for the HBS basin rather than attempting to use the existing trophic-score systems directly.

Such an approach would place more emphasis on the biological community, including aquatic and riparian species, rather than on a small set of taxa assigned fixed values for particular trophic states. The proposed index would compare reference sites, representing undisturbed or least-disturbed conditions, with impaired sites affected to different degrees. Candidate community metrics include species richness, the proportions of endemic, native and exotic species, annual versus perennial life cycles, terrestrial, hygrophytic, helophytic and hydrophyte life forms, ruderal and nitrophilous species, woody riparian structure, and the richness of sensitive and tolerant taxa.

Each candidate metric would be tested for its ability to distinguish reference from impaired sites before being retained and scored. This remains future work: the study did not select the final core metrics or demonstrate the performance of a completed HBS biotic-integrity index. The wider implication is that a familiar aquatic plant may carry a different ecological signal in another climate and river network.

Macrophytes are valuable indicators because they respond to environmental stresses and can reflect the dynamic and cumulative effects of stressing factors, yet the national lists and numeric values used to classify them are not universally transferable. For Morocco’s HBS basin, where perennial and intermittent waterways and a comparatively small aquatic flora shape local conditions, ecological monitoring may need to be built around regional reference communities and a broader set of aquatic and riparian traits. The study’s evidence supports that regionalization of the method, while leaving the selection and validation of the proposed metrics to future research.

Subject of Research: Regional limits of macrophyte-based indices for assessing ecological water quality in Mediterranean and Moroccan rivers

Article Title: Impact of hydromorphological pressures on the macrophytes bioindicators of the ecological water quality in Mediterranean rivers

Article References: Abdellah, M., & Saad, B. (2019). Impact of hydromorphological pressures on the macrophytes bioindicators of the ecological water quality in Mediterranean rivers. BioRisk, 14, 1-14. https://doi.org/10.3897/biorisk.14.30319

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/biorisk.14.30319

Keywords: macrophyte bioindicators, Mediterranean rivers, ecological water quality, river trophic status, biotic integrity, hydromorphology, aquatic vegetation, Morocco, HBS basin, European indices, Impact, hydromorphological

The focus of the new work is the Acanthodactylus erythrurus complex, a group built around the red-fringed or fringe-toed lizard formally described back in 1838. Acanthodactylus as a whole is the most species-rich genus in the lizard family Lacertidae, with 44 recognized species, and the erythrurus complex is arguably its most taxonomically tangled branch. The species occupies Morocco and Algeria and is the only member of its genus to reach Europe, where it occurs in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Genetic evidence indicates the Iberian populations were founded by colonizers from North Africa, and the two sides of the Mediterranean still show high levels of mitochondrial DNA admixture, particularly in the northern part of the range.

Decades of morphological study failed to bring order to this variation. Early taxonomists recognized two North African subspecies, while later authorities added a third from the Atlas Mountains and even suggested that one form deserved full species status. Others argued that all Moroccan populations represented a single, highly variable species whose differences simply reflected local adaptation. Molecular work then complicated matters further: mitochondrial DNA sequences revealed that the Tunisian species Acanthodactylus blanci and the form known as lineomaculatus both nest inside the erythrurus complex. One species-delimitation analysis of Algerian material suggested as many as 15 potential taxonomic units, the highest count recorded for any species examined in that study, alongside a striking east-west divergence across the Maghreb.

A major step toward resolution came in 2020, when researchers combining multi-locus sequence data with morphology recovered five major lineages and described two new species from the Atlas Mountains of Morocco: Acanthodactylus montanus from the High Atlas region and Acanthodactylus lacrymae from the Middle Atlas. These mountain forms are more closely related to Algerian and Tunisian lizards than to the bulk of Moroccan diversity, which remained parked in an unresolved cluster labeled the Ibero-Moroccan clade. Subsequent attempts to dissect that clade with mitochondrial and nine nuclear gene fragments managed only to distinguish four broad population groups separated by barriers to gene flow, while a recent genome-wide RADseq analysis of a contact zone hinted at strong reproductive isolation, suggesting even more cryptic species may be hiding within it.

To sharpen the geographic picture, the authors of the new study sequenced a partial fragment of the mitochondrial ND4 gene, together with adjacent transfer RNA regions, for 42 individuals, most of them from Morocco. The animals were caught in the field over a 20-year period, a small piece of tail tissue was removed for analysis, and each lizard was released at its collection site. Because single individuals often cannot be identified to lineage by appearance alone, every animal was sequenced. The new sequences were combined with 105 previously published ones from public databases, producing an aligned dataset of 769 base pairs, and four other Acanthodactylus species served as outgroups to root the analysis.

The laboratory workflow followed established protocols. Total genomic DNA was extracted from alcohol-preserved tail tissue using standard high-salt methods, and the ND4 fragment was amplified with the polymerase chain reaction under a regime of 33 cycles with an annealing temperature of 47 degrees Celsius. Sequences were edited and aligned with ClustalW, uncorrected genetic distances were calculated, and the team reconstructed evolutionary relationships using two complementary methods: Maximum Likelihood with 5,000 bootstrap replicates and Bayesian Inference run for five million generations in two independent analyses. The two approaches produced nearly identical trees, differing only slightly at the deepest nodes, and both recovered the same five major clades identified in earlier work.

The surprises came from geography rather than topology. New samples from the Debdou region, in the Moulouya river valley, filled a wide gap in the known distribution of the Ibero-Moroccan clade, which had previously been confirmed near Taza and then only by a single record more than 200 kilometers away in eastern Algeria. This matters because the Moulouya valley is widely regarded as a major biogeographic barrier that splits North African herpetofauna into western and eastern forms, and the lizards east of the valley do form a distinct subgroup within the clade, underscoring just how intricate the phylogeography of this complex really is.

Even more striking were the findings for the two Atlas Mountain species. Samples of Acanthodactylus lacrymae from a locality just north of Aït Aïssa extend that species’ range more than 100 kilometers to the east of previously confirmed populations. Meanwhile, a single specimen assigned to Acanthodactylus montanus pushes that lineage roughly 200 kilometers to the northeast and, crucially, places it within about 10 kilometers of the known range of A. lacrymae. The two species, previously thought to be broadly separated from each other, can therefore no longer be considered highly allopatric. That specimen also proved genetically remarkable: although phylogenetic analysis strongly supports it as the sister lineage to A. montanus, it differs from southern A. montanus samples by around 8 percent at the ND4 marker, a divergence exceeding that recorded between some accepted lacertid lizard species, though comparable to divergence levels seen within another Moroccan lacertid that showed incomplete lineage sorting in its nuclear genes.

The authors caution that mitochondrial DNA alone cannot settle these questions. Because the two Atlas species are extremely similar in appearance and cannot be reliably separated in the field, extensive genetic sampling across their contact zone will be needed to determine whether the two lineages occur in strict sympatry or whether there is genetic admixture between them. Genome-wide RADseq approaches, which have already revealed cryptic species within the Ibero-Moroccan clade, will likely be required to establish the taxonomic status of the newly detected montanus-like lineage as well. The study’s broader message is that both more genetic markers and more geographic sampling are essential, particularly across the southeastern part of Morocco, where the ranges of the different species and lineages remain incompletely mapped. For a group that has puzzled scientists since the nineteenth century, the fringe-toed lizards of North Africa are only slowly giving up their secrets, and each new map drawn from their DNA reveals just how much biodiversity still awaits formal recognition in the mountains and valleys of the Maghreb.

Subject of Research: Mitochondrial DNA diversity and geographic distribution of lineages within the Acanthodactylus erythrurus lizard species complex in North Africa

Article Title: New data on the diversity and distribution of lineages of the Acanthodactylus erythrurus species complex in North Africa derived from mitochondrial DNA markers

Article References: Harris, D. J., Sergiadou, D., & Faria, J. F. (2024). New data on the diversity and distribution of lineages of the Acanthodactylus erythrurus species complex in North Africa derived from mitochondrial DNA markers. Herpetozoa, 37, 281-286. https://doi.org/10.3897/herpetozoa.37.e118175

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/herpetozoa.37.e118175

Keywords: Acanthodactylus erythrurus, fringe-toed lizards, mitochondrial DNA, phylogeography, Morocco, North Africa, Atlas Mountains, cryptic species, Lacertidae, ND4 gene, species delimitation, herpetology

The research team sampled 16 sites distributed across the basin’s main watercourses, from near sea level up to 1,062 metres in the Rif Mountains. The sites were grouped into four categories reflecting altitude and land use: natural and semi-natural upstream reaches, semi-natural and agricultural midstream sites, agricultural lower reaches, and heavily urbanised downstream stations. Sampling covered four campaigns between April 2017 and February 2018, spanning spring, summer, autumn, and winter, and thus capturing both the wet Mediterranean season, when rain falls mainly between October and April, and the long dry period from May to September.

In total, the surveys yielded 1,268 individual beetles representing 50 species from 10 families and 27 genera. Diversity was strikingly uneven. The richest site, Tkaraa, lies inside Bouhachem Natural Park and hosted 22 species, while the most abundant site, Zarka, produced 194 individuals. At the opposite extreme, urbanised downstream sites such as Taboula and Roumana, close to Tétouan, yielded only a single species each. Gyrinidae, the whirligig beetles that skim the water surface in swirling groups, dominated numerically with 54 percent of all individuals, yet the diving beetles of the family Dytiscidae proved the most diverse, contributing 17 species, with the genus Agabus the richest in the basin.

Seasonality left a clear signature on the assemblages. Species richness peaked in spring 2017 with 31 species and 377 individuals, whereas the post-flood winter of 2018 produced only 208 individuals from 19 species. The two great beetle suborders responded in opposite ways. Adephaga, which include the whirligigs and diving beetles, dominated the dry period, averaging 20.3 occurrences per station in spring and favouring warm, standing pools. Polyphaga, including the riffle beetles of Elmidae and the minute moss beetles of Hydraenidae, were more frequent under wetter, flowing conditions, reaching an average of 9.38 occurrences per station in autumn. A factorial correspondence analysis separated the fauna cleanly by season, with rheophilic species tied to wet-season flows, thermophilic species concentrated in summer pools, and eurythermic generalists associated with spring’s relatively stable conditions.

Functional traits reinforced the pattern. Predators made up 73 percent of individuals and swimmers 72 percent, although the authors caution that this signal is heavily skewed by the sheer abundance of surface-dwelling whirligig beetles, which count as both. When Gyrinidae were excluded, the picture changed: shredders preferred winter, clingers replaced swimmers as the dominant group in wetter months, and the assemblage shifted toward benthic, substrate-associated forms. The physiological explanation is elegant. Many Adephaga breathe atmospheric air stored beneath their elytra, allowing them to endure warm, oxygen-poor isolated pools as drought advances. Riffle beetles and their relatives, by contrast, depend on plastron or cuticular respiration and require well-oxygenated running water, so they suffer when flow ceases and dissolved oxygen collapses.

The environmental gradient along the river was stark. Mean water temperature rose from 15.5°C at upstream sites to 20.8°C downstream, and electrical conductivity climbed from 269 to 936 microsiemens per centimetre. Dissolved oxygen fell from 7.84 to 2.49 milligrams per litre, while biochemical oxygen demand increased from 10.7 to 32.3 milligrams per litre and chemical oxygen demand from 24.8 to 74.6. Beetle abundance mirrored this degradation, plunging from a mean of 29.6 individuals per upstream site to just 1.19 at the most impacted stations, with species richness dropping from 5.5 taxa to 0.81. A co-inertia analysis, statistically confirmed by Monte Carlo permutation tests, captured this structure: the first two axes explained over 94 percent of the joint variation and opposed well-oxygenated upland refuges dominated by sensitive rheophilic species against lowland, organically enriched reaches occupied by tolerant generalists such as Laccophilus minutus and Helophorus atlantis.

Perhaps the most consequential finding concerns where the compositional break occurs. A permutational multivariate analysis of variance showed that habitat type explained 33.7 percent of the variation in community composition, but pairwise comparisons revealed that urban sites differed significantly from every other category, while upstream, midstream, and agricultural sites did not differ significantly from one another. In other words, moderate agricultural pressure leaves beetle assemblages broadly continuous along the river, but urbanisation produces a threshold-like rupture. Beta-diversity partitioning added a second insight: total dissimilarity across sites was high, at 0.701, and species turnover accounted for 73.7 percent of it, meaning that communities along the Martil are structured mainly by the replacement of specialist species by generalists, not simply by the progressive loss of species.

The study also carries a warning for endemic species. Helophorus atlantis, a Moroccan endemic classified as highly vulnerable, was recorded only in the polluted downstream zone. The authors note that in intermittent rivers, floods can act as mass dispersal events that sweep upstream individuals into lowland reaches, so such records may reflect transient, trapped populations rather than genuine ecological tolerance. Whether this beetle truly survives under urban pollution or was merely drifting through remains an open question, and one that matters for assessing how North Africa’s endemic aquatic insects cope with disturbance. Meanwhile, sites within Bouhachem Natural Park and permanent midstream watercourses showed high endemism, particularly among Polyphaga, confirming their role as critical refuges.

These results resonate across the wider Mediterranean, a global freshwater biodiversity hotspot where climate-driven aridification is lengthening dry phases and human pressure is fragmenting the remaining permanent waters. As riffles disappear and pools isolate, desiccation-tolerant, air-breathing, actively dispersing species gain ground while oxygen-dependent specialists retreat upstream, a dynamic that risks biotic homogenisation outside protected areas. In the Rif Mountains, one of Morocco’s principal aquatic endemism hotspots, the stakes are especially high, yet national knowledge of aquatic beetle distributions and the ecological requirements of endemic taxa remains incomplete, and IUCN criteria designed primarily for vertebrates often fail to capture the needs of invertebrates.

The authors’ central recommendation is practical: conservation planning should extend beyond headwater parks to include the permanent mid-reaches where sensitive and endemic species persist, and pollution and hydromorphological degradation in lowland reaches must be reduced to restore longitudinal connectivity. Because water beetles respond so sharply to flow permanence, oxygen levels, and organic pollution, they can serve as effective bioindicators for identifying priority sites and guiding the expansion of protected area networks through complementarity-based approaches. With more than half of the Martil basin already protected but its lowland waters still deteriorating, the message from these 1,268 beetles is unambiguous: the river’s future diversity will be decided not only in its mountain strongholds, but in the connecting reaches that urban Morocco has so far allowed to degrade.

Subject of Research: Effects of seasonal river drying and human pollution on aquatic beetle diversity in a Mediterranean river basin in northern Morocco

Article Title: Effects of hydrological intermittency and anthropogenic pressure on aquatic beetle assemblages in the Martil River (north-western Morocco)

Article References: Guellaf, A., Bennas, N., & Kettani, K. (2026). Effects of hydrological intermittency and anthropogenic pressure on aquatic beetle assemblages in the Martil River (north-western Morocco). Biodiversity Data Journal, 14, Article e192023. https://doi.org/10.3897/bdj.14.e192023

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.14.e192023

Keywords: aquatic beetles, hydrological intermittency, Mediterranean freshwater, Morocco, Rif Mountains, urban pollution, biodiversity indicators, species turnover, water quality, conservation planning, endemism, macroinvertebrates