Impacts of biodiversity on the emergence and transmission of infectious diseases

Felicia Keesing (), Lisa K. Belden, Peter Daszak, Andrew Dobson, C. Drew Harvell, Robert D. Holt, Peter Hudson, Anna Jolles, Kate E. Jones, Charles E. Mitchell, Samuel S. Myers, Tiffany Bogich and Richard S. Ostfeld
Additional contact information
Felicia Keesing: Bard College
Lisa K. Belden: Virginia Tech
Peter Daszak: EcoHealth Alliance
Andrew Dobson: EEB, Eno Hall, Princeton University
C. Drew Harvell: Cornell University
Robert D. Holt: University of Florida
Peter Hudson: Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Pennsylvania State University
Anna Jolles: College of Veterinary Medicine, Oregon State University
Kate E. Jones: Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London
Charles E. Mitchell: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Samuel S. Myers: Harvard Medical School, Harvard University
Tiffany Bogich: EcoHealth Alliance
Richard S. Ostfeld: Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Nature, 2010, vol. 468, issue 7324, 647-652

Abstract: Biodiversity is good for you Changes in biodiversity have the potential to either increase or reduce the incidence of infectious disease in plants and animals — including humans — because they involve interactions among species. At a minimum, this requires a host and a pathogen; often many more species are involved, including additional hosts, vectors and other organisms with which these species interact. Felicia Keesing and colleagues review the evidence that reduced biodiversity affects the transmission of infectious diseases of humans, other animals and plants. Despite important questions still to be answered, they conclude that the evidence that biodiversity exerts a protective effect on infectious diseases is sufficiently strong to include biodiversity protection as a strategy to improve health.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (70)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09575 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:468:y:2010:i:7324:d:10.1038_nature09575

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature09575

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().