"In fact, white-footed mice appear to be the most competent animal host reservoir of Lyme disease in the northeastern U.S.," Pongsiri notes on an EPA blog, "So, the more white-footed mice that are in the forest, the greater chance more ticks will be infected, and the greater chance you have of getting bitten by an infected tick."

In other words, if you're worried about catching Lyme disease, it's a good idea to wear long pants-but it might be a better idea to join your conservation commission or zoning board since "protecting large forested areas in the vicinity of residential areas may reduce the risk of Lyme disease," the BioScience paper notes.

Eco-epidemiology

It is new to think about biodiversity-and therefore, species and land conservation-as integral to public health. Until recently, almost no epidemiologists, nor medical schools, were framing questions of human infectious disease prevention in terms of, say, habitat structure, promoting genetic diversity in non-human species, or protecting animal predators as ecosystem regulators. Human diseases, goes the conventional thinking, are best understood and treated by looking at humans.

"Now there is the beginning of a movement to bring epidemiology and ecology together," says Pongsiri.

"We're not saying that biodiversity loss is the primary driver for all of these emerging diseases," says Roman, "but it appears to be playing an important role."

"We're trying to make the case that all of these environmental changes we're making, because they are anthropogenic, can be managed, can be controlled," says Pongsiri. "We may be able to actually reduce or prevent these diseases by managing for biodiversity from the genetic level to the habitat level."

A third of the bird species on the planet are at risk of extinction and a quarter of the mammals, Roman says, "and we have an incredible amount of habitat being destroyed, along with climate change. We should expect to see the impacts of these changes occurring now, to people-and we do."

"The standard argument for protecting biodiversity is often that, well, there are medicines out there and you don't want to destroy a forest where you might have a cure for cancer," he says, " and that's true-but I don't think that's as compelling as the argument that if you cut down the forest you or your kids are more prone to infectious diseases."

Source: University of Vermont