Comprehensive biodiversity assessment of moths in Nigeria rely greatly on accurate species identification. While most of the Nigerian moths are identified effortlessly using their morphological traits, some taxa are morphologically indistinguishable, which makes it difficult for taxon diagnosis. We investigated the efficiency of the DNA barcode, a fragment of the mitochondrial Cytochrome C oxidase subunit I, as a tool for the identification of Nigerian moths. We barcoded 152 individuals comprising 18 morphospecies collected from one of the remaining and threatened rainforest blocks of Nigeria – the Cross River National Park. Phenetic neighbor-joining tree and phylogenetic Maximum Likelihood approach were employed for the molecular-based species identification. Results showed that DNA barcodes enabled species-level identification of most of the individuals collected from the Park. Additionally, DNA barcoding unraveled the presence of at least six potential new and yet undescribed species—Amnemopsyche sp., Arctia sp., Deinypena sp., Hodebertia sp., Otroeda sp., and Palpita sp. The phylogenetic Maximum Likelihood using the combined dataset of all the newly assembled sequences from Nigeria showed that all species formed unique clades. The phylogenetic analyses provided evidence of population divergence in Euchromia lethe, Nyctemera leuconoe, and Deinypena lacista. This study thus illustrates the efficacy of DNA barcoding for species identification and discovery of potential new species, which demonstrates its relevance in biodiversity documentation of Nigerian moths. Future work should, therefore, extend to the creation of an exhaustive DNA barcode reference library comprising all species of moths from Nigeria to have a comprehensive insight on the diversity of moths in the country. Finally, we propose integrated taxonomic methods that would combine morphological, ecological, and molecular data in the identification and diversity studies of moths in Nigeria.

Given the sheer size of the Nigerian population, increasing at geometric rate while food production increases at arithmetic rate, crop pollinations have important implications for nation food self-sufficiency and the sustainable increases in food production. This work was undertaken to assess farmers’ knowledge, attitude and perception of bee pollination activity vis-à-vis watermelon and soybean production in North-Central, Nigeria. A field survey comprising questionnaire administration and group discussion of the watermelon and soybean farmers was conducted in 10 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Kwara State, North-Central Nigeria. A total of 160 farmers consisting of 80 watermelon and 80 soybean farmers were randomly sampled. The main tools of analysis were descriptive statistics and propensity score matching. The results revealed that the average age of watermelon and soybean farmers were 43 and 45 years, mean education index of 4.1 and 4.6 years respectively, household size of 8 and adjusted size of 7 for both and average annual income of ₦120550 ($430.54) and ₦135600 ($484.29) respectively. The empirical results also revealed there is a significant difference in average annual farm income and crop yields among watermelon and soybean farmers who adopt bee pollination services and non-adopters. The study recommends the need to enlighten and assist farmers through extension agents to imbibed bee pollination service for insect dependent crop production.

Dried fish vendors located at three markets in Kwara State, Nigeria were surveyed and Dermestes maculatus Degeer-infested specimens of dried Chrysichthys nigrodigitatus, Heterobranchus bidorsalis and Oreochromis niloticus were analyzed in the laboratory. The dried fish species were exposed to D. maculatus larvae and adults for 35 days at ambient laboratory conditions that coincided with their developmental cycle after which the level of damages were recorded. The vendor survey showed that the Ipata market had the most dried fish vendors within the age of 20-30 years (46.66%) and that 60% of the fish vendors had, atmost, 20 years of experience. The weight loss in dried fish due to D. maculatus infestations (larval, adult) was H. bidorsalis (22.66 ± 1.20g, 29.00 ± 3.05g), O. niloticus (14.33 ± 2.96g, 20.00 ± 0.58g), and C. nigrodigitatus (14.00 ± 1.53g, 15.00 ± 1.15g) in decreasing order. This suggests that the development of cost-effective methods for pest control in dried fish would greatly reduce market loss of product for dried fish vendors from D. maculatus and other pestiferous species, making the dried fish business more profitable in Nigeria.