Biodiversity and disease: a synthesis of ecological perspectives on Lyme disease transmission.
Trends in Ecology and Evolution
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Abstract
Recent reviews have argued that disease control is among the ecosystem services yielded by biodiversity. Lyme disease (LD) is commonly cited as the best example of the ‘diluting’ effect of biodiversity on disease transmission, but many studies document the opposite relationship, showing that human LD risk can increase with forestation. Here, we unify these divergent perspectives and find strong evidence for a positive link between biodiversity and LD at broad spatial scales (urban to suburban to rural) and equivocal evidence for a negative link between biodiversity and LD at varying levels of biodiversity within forests. This finding suggests that, across zoonotic disease agents, the biodiversity–disease relationship is scale dependent and complex.
| Publication type | Article |
|---|---|
| Publication Subtype | Journal Article |
| Title | Biodiversity and disease: a synthesis of ecological perspectives on Lyme disease transmission. |
| Series title | Trends in Ecology and Evolution |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.tree.2012.10.011 |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Year Published | 2013 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Elsevier |
| Contributing office(s) | Western Ecological Research Center |
| Description | 9 p. |
| Larger Work Type | Article |
| Larger Work Subtype | Journal Article |
| Larger Work Title | Trends in Ecology and Evolution |
| First page | 239 |
| Last page | 247 |
| Google Analytic Metrics | Metrics page |