Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 707 Location: Toronto,Canada (biggest Canadian city)
[newscientist] Lose biodiversity and gain diseases
Quote:
HERE'S an economic incentive to protect biodiversity: we'll save money on public health. Habitat and species loss could cost us millions, because the animals that play host to mosquitoes and ticks will go unchecked by predators.
Small, separate patches of forest and grassland cannot support large roaming predators, allowing small prey animals such as the white-footed mouse to thrive. This species carries and transmits Lyme disease very efficiently, while larger animals such as squirrels, foxes and coyotes do not, says Andy Dobson, an ecologist at Princeton University.
Lyme disease is more prevalent in areas where animals' habitat is very fragmented. Malaria and tick-borne encephalitis also increase as biodiversity falls, as does West Nile virus, which is carried by birds (Public Library of Science Medicine, DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0030231).
"If that biodiversity weren't there, how much would it cost to treat those extra cases of West Nile virus, Lyme disease and malaria?" asks Dobson.
