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Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease?
Open accessAbstract
Control of human infectious disease has been promoted as a valuable ecosystem service arising from the conservation of biodiversity. There are two commonly discussed mechanisms by which biodiversity loss could increase rates of infectious disease in a landscape. First, loss of competitors or predators could facilitate an increase in the abundance of competent reservoir hosts. Second, biodiversity loss could disproportionately affect non‐competent, or less competent reservoir hosts, which would otherwise interfere with pathogen transmission to human populations by, for example, wasting the bites of infected vectors. A negative association between biodiversity and disease risk, sometimes called the “dilution effect hypothesis,” has been supported for a few disease agents, suggests an exciting win–win outcome for the environment and society, and has become a pervasive topic in the disease ecology literature. Case studies have been assembled to argue that the dilution effect is general across disease agents. Less touted are examples in which elevated biodiversity does not affect or increases infectious disease risk for pathogens of public health concern. In order to assess the likely generality of the dilution effect, we review the association between biodiversity and public health across a broad variety of human disease agents. Overall, we hypothesize that conditions for the dilution effect are unlikely to be met for most important diseases of humans. Biodiversity probably has little net effect on most human infectious diseases but, when it does have an effect, observation and basic logic suggest that biodiversity will be more likely to increase than to decrease infectious disease risk.
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“However, the impacts of defaunation on disease are far from straightforward (71)”
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“and few major human pathogens seem to fit the criteria that would make such a relationship pervasive (71).”
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“This ‘‘dilution effect hypothesis’’ has found significant support in field-based studies, but is still debated in the literature on disease (Myers et al. 2013; Wood et al. 2014).”
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“This is the opposite of the dilution effect [52].”
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“This finding initially seems consistent with the prediction of Wood et al. (2014) that New World cutaneous leishmaniases should respond positively to biodiversity.”
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“These metrics may correlate with the potential products and services provided by biodiversity, such as decreased or increased risks of disease (34).”
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De-urbanization and Zoonotic Disease Risk
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“For instance, given potential changes in host community composition as abandoned urban lands undergo succession, these habitats could provide data relevant to the widespread debate on the biodiversity-disease dilution effect, which posits a negative relationship between host community species diversity and human disea…”
Hendy, A., Hernández-Acosta, E., Chaves, B. A., Fé, N. F., Valério, D., Mendonça, C. R., Lacerda, M., Buenemann, M., Vasilakis, N., & Hanley, K. A. (2020) · Acta Tropica · doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2020.105441 · Cited by 52
Chavy, A., Nava, A. F. D., Luz, S. L. B., Ramírez, J. D., Herrera, G., dos Santos, T. V., Ginouvès, M., Demar, M., Prévot, G., Guégan, J., et al. (2019) · PLoS neglected tropical diseases · doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007629 · Cited by 54
Abandonment, Ecological Assembly and Public Health Risks in Counter-Urbanizing Cities
Gulachenski, A., Ghersi, B., Lesen, A. E., & Blum, M. (2016) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su8050491 · Cited by 49
“Due to the potential complexity of these systems, individual relationships between vector(s) and host(s) become crucial to predicting outcomes [146], therefore diversity measures alone may not predict disease transmission as accurately as other measures of community composition in counter-urbanizing cities [100,147].”
BackgroundParasites as conservation tools
Gagne, R. B., Crooks, K. R., Craft, M. E., Chiu, E. S., Fountain‐Jones, N. M., Malmberg, J. L., Carver, S., Funk, W. C., & VandeWoude, S. (2021) · Conservation Biology · doi:10.1111/cobi.13719 · Cited by 50
“There is extensive debate regarding connections between biodiversity and parasite diversity or disease severity (e.g., Lyme disease) (Lafferty & Wood, 2013; Ostfeld & Keesing, 2000; Wood et al., 2014).”
BackgroundDumonteil, E., Pronovost, H., Bierman, E. F., Sanford, A. C., Majeau, A., Moore, R., & Herrera, C. P. (2020) · Molecular Ecology · doi:10.1111/mec.15582 · Cited by 49
“…loss leads to increased (amplification effect) or decreased (dilution effect) pathogen transmission or whether responses are specific to the pathogens and/or environment being considered (Civitello et al., 2015; Johnson, Calhoun, Riepe, McDevitt-Galles, & Koprivnikar, 2019; Wood et al., 2014).”
BackgroundHost density increases parasite recruitment but decreases host risk in a snail–trematode system
Buck, J. C., Hechinger, R. F., Wood, A. C., Merrill, T. E. S., Kuris, A. M., & Lafferty, K. D. (2017) · Ecology · doi:10.1002/ecy.1905 · Cited by 45
“Examining a the list of 69 common human parasites with substantial pathogenicity (Kuris 2012, Wood et al. 2014) reveals that over 60% might be subject to infective-stage depletion at local scales (including vectored parasites and those with passive or active searching stages).”
BackgroundSelf-citationFearon, M. L., & Tibbetts, E. A. (2021) · Ecology · doi:10.1002/ecy.3305 · Cited by 44
Trypanosoma cruzi transmission dynamics in a synanthropic and domesticated host community
Flores‐Ferrer, A., Waleckx, E., Rascalou, G., Dumonteil, E., & Gourbière, S. (2019) · PLoS neglected tropical diseases · doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0007902 · Cited by 44
Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications
Young, H. S., Wood, C. L., Kilpatrick, A. M., Lafferty, K. D., Nunn, C. L., & Vincent, J. R. (2017) · Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences · doi:10.1098/rstb.2016.0124 · Cited by 46
Self-citationSokolow, S. H., Nova, N., Jones, I. J., Wood, C. L., Lafferty, K. D., Garchitorena, A., Hopkins, S. R., Lund, A. J., MacDonald, A. J., LeBoa, C., et al. (2022) · The Lancet Planetary Health · doi:10.1016/s2542-5196(22)00248-0 · Cited by 44
“26 Our results support previous theoretical, 27–29 empirical, 16 and meta-analytic 30 studies that have found variable effects of land-use and biodiversity on human infectious disease.”
ResultSelf-citationCortez, M. H., & Duffy, M. A. (2021) · The American Naturalist · doi:10.1086/715110 · Cited by 43
Kocher, A., Cornuault, J., Gantier, J.-C., Manzi, S., Chavy, A., Girod, R., Dusfour, I., Forget, P., Ginouvès, M., Prévot, G., et al. (2022) · Molecular Ecology · doi:10.1111/mec.16341 · Cited by 42
Does the dilution effect generally occur in animal diseases?
Huang, Z. Y. X., YU, Y., van Langevelde, F., & de Boer, W. F. (2017) · Parasitology · doi:10.1017/s0031182016002572 · Cited by 41
Mysterud, A., Hatlegjerde, I., & Sørensen, O. J. (2014) · Parasites & Vectors · doi:10.1186/preaccept-2690016861365288 · Cited by 41
Young, H. S., Dirzo, R., McCauley, D. J., Agwanda, B. R., Cattaneo, L., Dittmar, K., Eckerlin, R. P., Fleischer, R. C., Helgen, L. E., Hintz, A., et al. (2015) · Journal of Parasitology · doi:10.1645/14-684.1 · Cited by 40
Self-citationde Thoisy, B., Duron, O., Epelboin, L., Musset, L., Quénel, P., Roche, B., Binetruy, F., Briolant, S., Carvalho, L., Chavy, A., et al. (2021) · Infection Genetics and Evolution · doi:10.1016/j.meegid.2021.104916 · Cited by 40
“This idea received much attention, but also triggered criticisms claiming that the biodiversity–disease relationship was idiosyncratic due to other mechanisms that could instead lead to amplification of disease transmission with increasing biodiversity (Randolph and Dobson, 2012; Wood et al., 2014).”
BackgroundIs restoring an ecosystem good for your health?
Speldewinde, P., Slaney, D., & Weinstein, P. (2014) · The Science of The Total Environment · doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.09.028 · Cited by 40
“It appears that the relationship between biodiversity and disease can be positive or negative and the relationship may not be simple or consistent (Wood et al., 2014).”
BackgroundFernández, D., Giné-Vázquez, I., Liu, I., Yucel, R. M., Ruscone, M. N., Morena, M., García, V. G., Haro, J. M., Pan, W., & Tyrovolas, S. (2020) · Environmental Pollution · doi:10.1016/j.envpol.2020.116326 · Cited by 40
“In that sense, several studies have suggested that the transmission of diseases increases with the loss of biodiversity (Keesing et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2014; Lacroix et al., 2014; Johnson et al., 2015).”
Parasite responses to large mammal loss in an African savanna
Weinstein, S. B., Titcomb, G., Agwanda, B. R., Riginos, C., & Young, H. S. (2017) · Ecology · doi:10.1002/ecy.1858 · Cited by 38
“…with one of the few points of agreement being a need for more large-scale experimental studies examining mechanisms by which realistic patterns of biodiversity loss alter disease dynamics (Keesing et al. 2006, Gottdenker et al. 2014, Wood et al. 2014, Civitello et al. 2015, Johnson et al. 2015).”
BackgroundResultSelf-citationPeterson, J. K., Bartsch, S. M., Lee, B. Y., & Dobson, A. P. (2015) · Parasites & Vectors · doi:10.1186/s13071-015-1146-1 · Cited by 37
“cruzi is considered as a parasite that responds negatively to biodiversity in undisturbed ‘wild’ systems [39], although it is unknown if this is the case in domestic transmission settings.”
BackgroundHuang, Z. Y. X., Xu, C., van Langevelde, F., Ma, Y., Langendoen, T., Mundkur, T., Si, Y., Tian, H., Kraus, R. H. S., Gilbert, M., et al. (2019) · Journal of Animal Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2656.12997 · Cited by 37
“Despite much evidence for the dilution effect (Ostfeld & Keesing 2012; 106 Civitello et al. 2015; Huang et al. 2017), its generality is still highly disputed (Randolph 107 & Dobson 2012; Young et al. 2013; Wood et al. 2014; Huang et al. 2016).”
BackgroundPeng, P., Guo, X., Jin, D., Dong, W., Qian, T., Qin, F., Yang, Z.-H., & Fan, R. (2018) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0189987 · Cited by 38
Does biodiversity protect humans against infectious disease? Comment
Levi, T., Massey, A. L., Holt, R. D., Keesing, F., Ostfeld, R. S., & Peres, C. A. (2016) · Ecology · doi:10.1890/15-354.1 · Cited by 36
A field test of the dilution effect hypothesis in four avian multi-host pathogens
Ferraguti, M., la Puente, J. M., Jiménez‐Clavero, M. Á., Llorente, F., Roiz, D., Ruíz, S., Soriguer, R. C., & Figuerola, J. (2021) · PLoS Pathogens · doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1009637 · Cited by 38
“However, theoretical models suggest that both negative (dilution) and positive (amplification) relationships between pathogen prevalence and biodiversity occur [8,9] and, indeed, both phenomena have been observed in wild populations.”
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Crop protection practices and viral zoonotic risks within a One Health framework
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Evolutionary and ecological insights into the emergence of arthropod-borne viruses
Marklewitz, M., & Junglen, S. (2018) · Acta Tropica · doi:10.1016/j.actatropica.2018.10.006 · Cited by 32
Stephens, C. R., González‐Salazar, C., Sánchez-Cordero, V. M., Becker, I., Rebollar-Téllez, E. A., Rodríguez‐Moreno, Á., Berzunza‐Cruz, M., Balcells, C. D., Gutiérrez‐Granados, G., Hidalgo‐Mihart, M. G., et al. (2016) · PLoS neglected tropical diseases · doi:10.1371/journal.pntd.0005004 · Cited by 32
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Halsey, S. J., & Miller, J. R. (2018) · Ecological Modelling · doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2018.09.005 · Cited by 31
Lose biodiversity, gain disease
McCallum, H. I. (2015) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1510607112 · Cited by 32
Emerging challenges of infectious diseases as a feature of land systems
Vanwambeke, S., Linard, C., & Gilbert, M. (2019) · Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability · doi:10.1016/j.cosust.2019.05.005 · Cited by 30
Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change: Implications for Public Health
Cook, P. A., Howarth, M. L., & Wheater, C. P. (2019) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8_11 · Cited by 29
The accelerated infectious disease risk in the Anthropocene: more outbreaks and wider global spreadPreprint
Morand, S., & Walther, B. A. (2020) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · doi:10.1101/2020.04.20.049866 · Cited by 35
“…presence of abundant biodiversity and healthy ecosystems has an overall positive effect on human well-being and health (Chivian and Bernstein, 2008; Wood et al., 2014; Sandifer et al., 2015; Walther et al., 2016; Morand and Lajaunie, 2017; McMahon et al., 2018) which should count as an additional…”
Background
Metadata
- Authors
- Wood, C. L., Lafferty, K. D., DeLeo, G., Young, H. S., Hudson, P. J., & Kuris, A. M.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- United States Geological Survey (US)
- Smithsonian Institution (US)
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- University of California, Santa Barbara (US)
- Corresponding author
- Wood, Chelsea L.
- Venue
- Ecology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2014-04
- Volume
- 95
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 817-832
- ISSN
- 0012-9658 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-9170
- OpenAlex
- W2043188267
- Cited by
- 268
- References
- 95
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 13 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 45 · 2020: 27 · 2019: 19 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 22 · 2014: 9
- FWCI
- 24.77
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Ecology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (1115965)
- National Institutes of Health (OCE-1115965)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Zoonotic diseases and public health
- Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Parasitology › Parasite Biology and Host Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Keywords
- biodiversity, infectious disease risk, ecosystem services, reservoir hosts, vector competence, pathogen transmission, biodiversity loss, disease ecology
- MeSH terms
- Adaptation, Biological, Animals, Communicable Diseases, Disease Vectors, Humans, Zoonoses, Genetic Predisposition to Disease, Biodiversity, Host-Pathogen Interactions
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