ArticleNature communications2019
Measuring the shape of the biodiversity-disease relationship across systems reveals new findings and key gaps.
Article in Nature communications, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 36 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
36 citing papers in PubMed.
- Socioeconomic risk factors and human immunosuppressive conditions are major drivers of human leishmaniasis in southern Europe.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2026Article
- Filter feeding by oysters reduces disease transmission in a marine host-parasite system.Ecology · 2026Article
- Parasitiformes (ticks) and Acariformes (mites) vectors and their vertebrate host diversity: A global scoping review.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- Reservoir host community and vector density predict human tick-borne diseases across the Eastern United States.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Trematode Infection Prevalence Increases With Snail Richness: Observations From a 4-Year Study of Snail-Trematode Interactions.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Advancing Theory Underlying Diversity-Disease Relationships: Competence in the Context of Life History, Demography, and Disease.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Beyond Species Richness: The Importance of Phylogenetic Dimensions of Biodiversity in Disease Ecology.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Molecules to spillover: how climate warming impacts mosquito-borne viruses.Current opinion in virology · 2025Review
- Reappraisal of the Dilution and Amplification Effect Framework: A Case Study in Lyme Disease.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Plant species richness promotes the decoupling of leaf and root defence traits while species-specific responses in physical and chemical defences are rare.The New phytologist · 2025Article
- Infectious disease responses to human climate change adaptations.Global change biology · 2024Review
- Bat species assemblage predicts coronavirus prevalence.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Interconnecting global threats: climate change, biodiversity loss, and infectious diseases.The Lancet. Planetary health · 2024Review
- Biogeographic patterns and drivers of soil viromes.Nature ecology & evolution · 2024Article
- Non-linear effects of non-host diversity on the removal of free-living infective stages of parasites.Oecologia · 2024Article
- Malaria Risk Drivers in the Brazilian Amazon: Land Use-Land Cover Interactions and Biological Diversity.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Bird community effects on avian malaria infections.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Host diversity positively affects the temporal stability of foliar fungal diseases in a Tibetan alpine meadow.Annals of botany · 2022Article
- Biological invasions facilitate zoonotic disease emergences.Nature communications · 2022Article
- Plague risk in the western United States over seven decades of environmental change.Global change biology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Diverse host communities commonly inhibit the spread of parasites at small scales. However, the generality of this effect remains controversial. Here, we present the analysis of 205 biodiversity-disease relationships on 67 parasite species to test whether biodiversity-disease relationships are generally nonlinear, moderated by spatial scale, and sensitive to underrepresentation in the literature. Our analysis of the published literature reveals that biodiversity-disease relationships are generally hump-shaped (i.e., nonlinear) and biodiversity generally inhibits disease at local scales, but this effect weakens as spatial scale increases. Spatial scale is, however, related to study design and parasite type, highlighting the need for additional multiscale research. Few studies are unrepresentative of communities at low diversity, but missing data at low diversity from field studies could result in underreporting of amplification effects. Experiments appear to underrepresent high-diversity communities, which could result in underreporting of dilution effects. Despite context dependence, biodiversity loss at local scales appears to increase disease, suggesting that at local scales, biodiversity loss could negatively impact human and wildlife populations.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.