ReviewNature ecology & evolution2020
Towards common ground in the biodiversity-disease debate.
Review in Nature ecology & evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 106 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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
106 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Malaria Prevalence Near African Mangroves: Negative Association With Mangrove Extent, but Positive Association With Mangrove Greenness.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Viral Infection Risk Driven by Ecological Trait Susceptibility to Habitat Heterogeneity.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Shedding-weighted network approaches for understanding tuberculosis maintenance in multihost systems using camera traps.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Mapping tick-borne hazard across gradients of urban intensity in metropolitan regions.Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Community Assembly Reveals How Environmental Controls Over Rodent Competition Drive Deer Mouse Density and Hantavirus Infection.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Freshwater Snails at the Biodiversity-Climate-Health Nexus: A Call to Recognize Neglected Models for Eco-Evolutionary and One Health Research.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Environmental disturbances of trophic interactions and their impacts on a multihost sapronotic pathogen.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Increasing spatial scale of analysis weakens and can mask the dilution effect for hantaviruses.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Host Community Traits Driving Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Maintenance in Iberian Ecosystems.Transboundary and emerging diseases · 2026Article
- Surveillance of Zoonotic Pathogens in Small Mammals Across Forests With Different Levels of Anthropization in Eastern France.Transboundary and emerging diseases · 2026Article
- Ecology and environment predict spatially stratified risk of H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza clade 2.3.4.4b in wild birds across Europe.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Changes in biodiversity drive trypanosome infections of wildlife in Panama.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Gut microbiome disruption in free-roaming cats: Do antibiotics reduce or restructure zoonotic risk?One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Parasitiformes (ticks) and Acariformes (mites) vectors and their vertebrate host diversity: A global scoping review.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- Association between bat-predator species richness and Nipah virus spillover risk in Bangladesh.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Reservoir host community and vector density predict human tick-borne diseases across the Eastern United States.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Adaptive ecosystem restoration to mitigate zoonotic risks.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Host-Microbiome Interactions as Moderators of Host Quality and Biodiversity-Disease Relationships.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Exploring Metrics of Biological Diversity to Better Predict and Respond to Emerging Diseases.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
46 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The disease ecology community has struggled to come to consensus on whether biodiversity reduces or increases infectious disease risk, a question that directly affects policy decisions for biodiversity conservation and public health. Here, we summarize the primary points of contention regarding biodiversity-disease relationships and suggest that vector-borne, generalist wildlife and zoonotic pathogens are the types of parasites most likely to be affected by changes to biodiversity. One synthesis on this topic revealed a positive correlation between biodiversity and human disease burden across countries, but as biodiversity changed over time within these countries, this correlation became weaker and more variable. Another synthesis-a meta-analysis of generally smaller-scale experimental and field studies-revealed a negative correlation between biodiversity and infectious diseases (a dilution effect) in various host taxa. These results raise the question of whether biodiversity-disease relationships are more negative at smaller spatial scales. If so, biodiversity conservation at the appropriate scales might prevent wildlife and zoonotic diseases from increasing in prevalence or becoming problematic (general proactive approaches). Further, protecting natural areas from human incursion should reduce zoonotic disease spillover. By contrast, for some infectious diseases, managing particular species or habitats and targeted biomedical approaches (targeted reactive approaches) might outperform biodiversity conservation as a tool for disease control. Importantly, biodiversity conservation and management need to be considered alongside other disease management options. These suggested guiding principles should provide common ground that can enhance scientific and policy clarity for those interested in simultaneously improving wildlife and human health.
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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.