ArticleEcology letters2020
Biodiversity loss underlies the dilution effect of biodiversity.
Article in Ecology letters, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 51 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
51 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- The Effect of Plant Host Density on Disease Incidence-A Meta-Analysis.Plant, cell & environment · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Article
- Community Assembly Reveals How Environmental Controls Over Rodent Competition Drive Deer Mouse Density and Hantavirus Infection.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Land use gradients drive spatial variation in Lassa fever host communities in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Parasitiformes (ticks) and Acariformes (mites) vectors and their vertebrate host diversity: A global scoping review.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Review
- Changes in biodiversity drive trypanosome infections of wildlife in Panama.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2025Article
- Adaptive ecosystem restoration to mitigate zoonotic risks.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Review
- Beyond Species Richness: The Importance of Phylogenetic Dimensions of Biodiversity in Disease Ecology.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Exploring Metrics of Biological Diversity to Better Predict and Respond to Emerging Diseases.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Advancing Theory Underlying Diversity-Disease Relationships: Competence in the Context of Life History, Demography, and Disease.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Article
- Reduced Biodiversity is Linked to Higher Triatomine Occupancy: Chagas Disease Implications.EcoHealth · 2025Article
- Reappraisal of the Dilution and Amplification Effect Framework: A Case Study in Lyme Disease.Ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Lower Bird Evenness and Diversity Are Associated With Higher Usutu Prevalence in Culex pipiens Mosquitoes.Zoonoses and public health · 2025Article
- The Release of Non-Native Gamebirds Is Associated With Amplified Zoonotic Disease Risk.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Diversity-disease relationships in natural microscopic nematode communities.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Pathogens and planetary change.Nature reviews. Biodiversity · 2025Article
- Towards a 'people and nature' paradigm for biodiversity and infectious disease.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- The roles of habitat isolation, landscape connectivity and host community in tick-borne pathogen ecology.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Population dynamics of the Lyme disease bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, during rapid range expansion in New York State.Molecular ecology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The dilution effect predicts increasing biodiversity to reduce the risk of infection, but the generality of this effect remains unresolved. Because biodiversity loss generates predictable changes in host community competence, we hypothesised that biodiversity loss might drive the dilution effect. We tested this hypothesis by reanalysing four previously published meta-analyses that came to contradictory conclusions regarding generality of the dilution effect. In the context of biodiversity loss, our analyses revealed a unifying pattern: dilution effects were inconsistently observed for natural biodiversity gradients, but were commonly observed for biodiversity gradients generated by disturbances causing losses of biodiversity. Incorporating biodiversity loss into tests of generality of the dilution effect further indicated that scale-dependency may strengthen the dilution effect only when biodiversity gradients are driven by biodiversity loss. Together, these results help to resolve one of the most contentious issues in disease ecology: the generality of the dilution effect.
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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.