Zoonotic host diversity increases in human-dominated ecosystems
Gibb et al., 2020
Gibb et al., 2020
Land use change—for example, the conversion of natural habitats to
agricultural or urban ecosystems—is widely recognized to influence the
risk and emergence of zoonotic disease in humans.
However, whether such changes in risk are underpinned by predictable
ecological changes remains unclear. It has been suggested that habitat
disturbance might cause predictable changes in the local diversity and
taxonomic composition of potential reservoir hosts, owing to systematic,
trait-mediated differences in species resilience to human pressures.
Here we analyse 6,801 ecological assemblages and 376 host species
worldwide, controlling for research effort, and show that land use has
global and systematic effects on local zoonotic host communities. Known
wildlife hosts of human-shared pathogens and parasites overall comprise a
greater proportion of local species richness (18–72% higher) and total
abundance (21–144% higher) in sites under substantial human use
(secondary, agricultural and urban ecosystems) compared with nearby
undisturbed habitats. The magnitude of this effect varies taxonomically
and is strongest for rodent, bat and passerine bird zoonotic host
species, which may be one factor that underpins the global importance of
these taxa as zoonotic reservoirs. We further show that mammal species
that harbour more pathogens overall (either human-shared or
non-human-shared) are more likely to occur in human-managed ecosystems,
suggesting that these trends may be mediated by ecological or
life-history traits that influence both host status and tolerance to
human disturbance.
Our results suggest that global changes in the mode and the intensity
of land use are creating expanding hazardous interfaces between people,
livestock and wildlife reservoirs of zoonotic disease.
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