The DOI matches its Crossref record; 34 of the 34 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Biodiversity inhibits parasites: Broad evidence for the dilution effect
Open accessAbstract
Significance: The dilution effect hypothesis suggests that diverse ecological communities limit disease spread via several mechanisms. Therefore, biodiversity losses could worsen epidemics that harm humans and wildlife. However, there is contentious debate over whether the hypothesis applies broadly, especially for parasites that infect humans. We address this fundamental question with a formal meta-analysis of >200 assessments relating biodiversity to disease in >60 host–parasite systems. We find overwhelming evidence of dilution, which is independent of host density, study design, and type and specialization of parasites. A second analysis identified similar effects of diversity in plant–herbivore systems. Thus, biodiversity generally decreases parasitism and herbivory. Consequently, human-induced declines in biodiversity could increase human and wildlife diseases and decrease crop and forest production.
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“A rich literature on infectious diseases of wildlife, livestock, and plants demonstrates increased pathogen transmission when biodiversity is lost from some ecological communities (9, 53), supporting the generality of this relationship across nonzoonotic disease systems as well.”
From Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases (2021) · cites this paper as [9]
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“In contrast, biodiversity loss has been shown to often increase the risk of zoonotic diseases, for example, through the dilution effect (9).”
From Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases (2021) · cites this paper as [9]
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“But for decades, we have also known that under some conditions, high biological diversity can decrease the transmission of zoonotic diseases that have already become established (8, 9).”
From Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases (2021) · cites this paper as [9]
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“However, a larger metaanalysis found that the dilution effect was as strong for zoonoses as for other types of diseases (9), a conclusion that was robust to criticisms from the authors of the earlier study (57, 58).”
From Impacts of biodiversity and biodiversity loss on zoonotic diseases (2021) · cites this paper as [9]
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Citations
Cites
Conducting Meta-Analyses in R with the metafor Package
Viechtbauer, W. (2010) · Journal of Statistical Software · doi:10.18637/jss.v036.i03 · Cited by 20,464
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2009) · doi:10.1002/9780470743386 · Cited by 14,225
Borenstein, M., Hedges, L. V., Higgins, J. P. T., & Rothstein, H. R. (2021) · doi:10.1002/9781119558378 · Cited by 9,799
Global trends in emerging infectious diseases
Jones, K. E., Patel, N. G., Levy, M. A., Storeygard, A., Balk, D., Gittleman, J. L., & Daszak, P. (2008) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature06536 · Cited by 8,338
Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity
Cardinale, B. J., Duffy, J. E., Gonzalez, A., Hooper, D. U., Perrings, C., Venail, P., Narwani, A., Mace, G. M., Tilman, D., Wardle, D. A., et al. (2012) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature11148 · Cited by 7,457 · cited 3×
“cited sections of these articles, as well as those of reviews and meta-analyses of related topics (10, 13, 23).”
BackgroundEffect size, confidence interval and statistical significance: a practical guide for biologists
Nakagawa, S., & Cuthill, I. C. (2007) · Biological Reviews · doi:10.1111/j.1469-185x.2007.00027.x · Cited by 3,835
Ecosystems and human well-being: current state and trends
Hassan, R., Scholes, R. J., & Ash, N. (2005) · Cited by 2,582
Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases
Keesing, F., Belden, L. K., Daszak, P., Dobson, A., Harvell, C. D., Holt, R. D., Hudson, P., Jolles, A., Jones, K. E., Mitchell, C. E., et al. (2010) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature09575 · Cited by 2,043
The case of the misleading funnel plot
Lau, J., Ioannidis, J. P. A., Terrin, N., Schmid, C. H., & Olkin, I. (2006) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.333.7568.597 · Cited by 1,766
Effects of species diversity on disease risk
Keesing, F., Holt, R. D., & Ostfeld, R. S. (2006) · Ecology Letters · doi:10.1111/j.1461-0248.2006.00885.x · Cited by 1,642
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Zoonotic host diversity increases in human-dominated ecosystems
Gibb, R., Redding, D. W., Chin, K. Q., Donnelly, C. A., Blackburn, T. M., Newbold, T., & Jones, K. E. (2020) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-020-2562-8 · Cited by 880
Emerging human infectious diseases and the links to global food production
Rohr, J. R., Barrett, C. B., Civitello, D. J., Craft, M. E., Delius, B., DeLeo, G. A., Hudson, P. J., Jouanard, N., Nguyen, K. H., Ostfeld, R. S., et al. (2019) · Nature Sustainability · doi:10.1038/s41893-019-0293-3 · Cited by 722
Self-citationThe effect of global change on mosquito-borne disease
Franklinos, L. H. V., Jones, K. E., Redding, D. W., & Abubakar, I. I. (2019) · The Lancet Infectious Diseases · doi:10.1016/s1473-3099(19)30161-6 · Cited by 678
Global Patterns of Zoonotic Disease in Mammals
Han, B. A., Kramer, A. M., & Drake, J. M. (2016) · Trends in Parasitology · doi:10.1016/j.pt.2016.04.007 · Cited by 508
Patterns, Causes, and Consequences of Anthropocene Defaunation
Young, H. S., McCauley, D. J., Galetti, M., & Dirzo, R. (2016) · Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics · doi:10.1146/annurev-ecolsys-112414-054142 · Cited by 523
“However, a growing body of literature suggests that defaunation and other types of biodiversity loss may systematically benefit some parasites and pathogens, including some causal agents of human zoonoses (Civitello et al. 2015, Young et al. 2016).”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Civitello, D. J., Cohen, J., Fatima, H., Halstead, N. T., Liriano, J., McMahon, T. A., Ortega, C. N., Sauer, E. L., Sehgal, T., Young, S., & Rohr, J. R.
- Affiliations
- University of South Florida (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2015-06-11
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 28
- Pages
- 8667-8671
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4507196
- OpenAlex
- W1787861744
- Semantic Scholar
- 30ae28188a18cd22709c7ef13c462acd9260a5ea
- Cited by
- 758
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 38 · 2025: 72 · 2024: 83 · 2023: 61 · 2022: 81 · 2021: 114 · 2020: 78 · 2019: 61 · 2018: 54 · 2017: 51 · 2016: 49 · 2015: 14
- FWCI
- 50.68
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (EF-1241889, 1144244)
- HHS | National Institutes of Health (R01GM109499, F32AI112255)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture (NRI 2006-01370, 2009-35102-0543)
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (CAREER 83518801)
- Topics
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Parasitology › Parasite Biology and Host Interactions
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Zoonotic diseases and public health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Keywords
- dilution effect, biodiversity, parasite abundance, host diversity, zoonoses, disease risk, host-parasite interactions, plant-herbivore interactions, herbivory, biodiversity loss, human disease, wildlife disease
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Disease Susceptibility, Host-Parasite Interactions, Humans, Parasitic Diseases, Biodiversity
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