The extinction of species increases the occurrence of infectious diseases

The disappearance of all species, from bacteria to mammals, represents a threat to human health because it increases the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, according to a study released yesterday by the journal Nature.
Protecting biodiversity is more than fighting for the environment as a rich variety of animal and plant species in ecosystems helps prevent infectious diseases, according to the detailed study by experts from the universities of Princeton (New Jersey) and Cornell ( New York) and the New York Bard College.
The work of these scientists, entitled "Impact of Biodiversity in the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases, reveals a direct connection between the two, to point out that the loss of species in ecosystems such as forests and woodlands resulting in an increase in pathogens.
Experts say that animals, plants and microbes that tend to disappear when destroyed biodiversity are those that dampen the transmission of infectious diseases like West Nile virus, Lyme disease and hantavirus.
"We knew about specific cases in which an increasing biodiversity decline in the incidence of disease, but we have found that this pattern is much more general. This decline increases the transmission of a wide range of infectious systems," said Felicia Keesing, environmental expert at Bard College in New York and one of the authors of the study.
This paper shows that this pattern is for different types of infectious entities such as viruses, bacteria and fungi, and a wide range of organisms that host, whether human, animal or plant.
"As species disappear, the disease transmission rates can be accelerated. If you protect biodiversity can reduce the incidence of established pathogens," said Professor meanwhile Drew Harvell, an expert in ecology and evolutionary biology Cornell University said in a statement.
The study's authors insist that, in cases such as Lyme disease, which can be transmitted to humans by ticks that carry certain animals, their incidence is higher in ecosystems where biodiversity has been reduced.
They claim, for example, that in places where there is opossums intact communities, the rate of transmission of disease to humans is reduced, because the ticks are capable of surviving in these animals. If the presence of these mammals decline, increases the chance of infection.
The study also shows that the protective effect of different species is clearest in the land than the oceans, and that they produce "a new equation in respect to the transmission of diseases, climate change and biodiversity" , according to Harvell.
"Outbreaks of disease are accelerating due to global warming and this happens when we do not know the direct links in the chain of transmission of diseases," said the expert from Cornell.
In the work of these scientists and experts also made an appeal to authorities to carry out a follow-up "more rigorous" areas where there are large numbers of domesticated animals or farmed, whether land or marine.
"That would reduce the ability of infectious diseases jumping from animals into wild habitats to domestic and then to humans," said Andrew Dobson on the other hand, a professor at Princeton University.

Thanks to SPECTATOR