The Portuguese housing market underwent major transformations between 2010 and 2020. Until then, a delicate but resentful stability had long existed, with distorted rent schemes and low annual price increases proportional to the national economy and the income of the Portuguese population. After the financial crisis, several internal and external variables converged to dramatically change this scenario. In recent years, a growing number of researchers have centred their attention on the difficulties that the Portuguese urban middle-class populations are facing in trying to find homes. This paper analyses these challenges and their impact quantitatively, focusing on the affordability of housing for purchase or rent and considering synthetic indicators for average household incomes in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area between the beginning of 2016 and the end of 2019. The results show that the cost of buying or renting a house in the main Portuguese urban system has become much more detached from local incomes. The article concludes with reflections on the structural reasons for the enduring inequalities in the housing markets and the difficulties recognising territorial cohesion and spatial justice as important elements shaping urban and housing policies in Portugal.
Myxozoan parasites of the genus Kudoa Meglitsch, 1947 are associated with post-mortem tissue degradation that causes great financial losses to commercial fisheries. Kudoa thyrsites (Gilchrist, 1924) is a species with a very wide host range including commercial tunas, mackerels, salmonids and flatfishes. A sample of 190 fishes of 18 species from the Madeira Archipelago and 30 Atlantic chub mackerel, Scomber colias Gmelin, and 30 blue whiting, Micromesistius poutassou (Risso), from the Portuguese mainland coast were examined for the presence of species of Kudoa. The prevalence of Kudoa spp. was 80% in M. poutassou and 60% in S. colias. No spore was detected in S. colias from Madeira, which was confirmed by specific PCR screening of the muscle from all individuals of S. colias. SSU rDNA analysis revealed that M. poutassou and S. colias from the Portuguese mainland coast were infected with K. thyrsites, an economically important myxozoan parasite. Both sequences were identical with sequences of the eastern Atlantic K. thyrsites genotype, including that from the type host of this parasite. This is the first report of K. thyrsites from M. poutassou and S. colias. The fact that spores of species of Kudoa were not detected in fishes screened in the Madeira Archipelago may be explained by various ecological factors, such as the absence of a continental shelf, a short insular shelf, and oceanic waters with low productivity, all resulting in reduced abundance of benthic organisms. Consequently, it is possible that as yet unknown annelid definitive hosts of Kudoa spp. are absent or very rare near Madeiran coasts.