Conservation of biodiversity as a strategy for improving human health and well-being

Abstract

The Earth's ecosystems have been altered by anthropogenic processes, including land use, harvesting populations, species introductions and climate change. These anthropogenic processes greatly alter plant and animal communities, thereby changing transmission of the zoonotic pathogens they carry. Biodiversity conservation may be a potential win-win strategy for maintaining ecosystem health and protecting public health, yet the causal evidence to support this strategy is limited. Evaluating conservation as a viable public health intervention requires answering four questions: (i) Is there a general and causal relationship between biodiversity and pathogen transmission, and if so, which direction is it in? (ii) Does increased pathogen diversity with increased host biodiversity result in an increase in total disease burden? (iii) Do the net benefits of biodiversity conservation to human well-being outweigh the benefits that biodiversity-degrading activities, such as agriculture and resource utilization, provide? (iv) Are biodiversity conservation interventions cost-effective when compared to other options employed in standard public health approaches? Here, we summarize current knowledge on biodiversity-zoonotic disease relationships and outline a research plan to address the gaps in our understanding for each of these four questions. Developing practical and self-sustaining biodiversity conservation interventions will require significant investment in disease ecology research to determine when and where they will be effective.This article is part of the themed issue 'Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications'.

Conservation, biodiversity and infectious disease: scientific evidence and policy implications

“…Furthermore, although conservation biologists have focused on biodiversity, habitat modifications associated with disturbance (e.g. wetland draining or logging) can often affect transmission patterns to a greater extent than can changes in diversity; this might happen when, for example, gaining or losing a particular host or vector species, rather than biodiversity per se, drives disease transmission [13]. Similarly, from a social perspective, conservation might not be a cost-effective way to achieve public health benefits or to maximize public good, when conservation conflicts with other societal needs, including economic livelihoods [13].…”

“…To put these complex social and ecological factors into context, this Theme Issue begins with a paper by Kilpatrick et al [13] that describes the knowledge gaps that must be filled before we can propose conservation action to improve public health, including resolving uncertainties surrounding the biodiversity-disease relationship. Kilpatrick et al highlight that few studies consider socio-economic factors alongside conservation.…”

“…For one, diversity and infection risk have many definitions, making it possible to identify measures that conform to expectations [9]. Furthermore, the premise that habitat destruction consistently reduces biodiversity is in question [10,11], and disturbance or conservation can affect disease in many ways other than through biodiversity change [12,13]. To date, few studies have examined the broader set of mechanisms by which anthropogenic disturbance or conservation might increase or decrease infectious disease risk to human populations (e.g.…”

Phylogenetic structure of wildlife assemblages shapes patterns of infectious livestock diseases in Africa

“…Most studies on the diversity-disease relationships have focused on individual pathogens. However, this approach overlooks the potential importance of total disease burden, that is the total number (or richness) of manifest diseases in an assemblage or community (Kilpatrick, Salkeld, Titcomb, & Hahn, 2017). Some studies have provided evidence for the "diversity begets diversity" hypothesis, which generally links the diversity of pathogens (and not manifest diseases) to the diversity of species (Hechinger & Lafferty, 2005;Johnson et al, 2015Johnson et al, , 2016.…”

Does the impact of biodiversity differ between emerging and endemic pathogens? The need to separate the concepts of hazard and risk

“…However, the relationship between biodiversity protection and disease risk is not always simple either [53,54]. For example, conservation corridors, which can increase movement between patches in a metapopulation, can increase the population of an endangered species and increase the spread of disease throughout the metapopulation.…”