Recent controversy over whether biodiversity reduces disease risk (dilution effect) has focused on the ecology of Lyme disease, a tick-borne zoonosis. A criticism of the dilution effect is that increasing host species richness might amplify disease risk, assuming that total host abundance, and therefore feeding opportunities for ticks, increase with...
Full Text:
hosts for tick-borne pathogens
Taal Levi1,2,3, Felicia Keesing4, Robert D. Holt3, Michael Barfield3
Recent controversy over whether biodiversity reduces disease risk (dilution effect) has focused on the ecology of Lyme disease, a tick-borne zoonosis. A criticism of the dilution effect is that increasing host species richness might amplify disease risk, assuming that total host abundance, and therefore feeding opportunities for ticks, increase with...
Full Text:
pathogens
taal levI,1,5 FelIcIa KeesIng,2 robert d. Holt,3 MIcHaelbarFIeld,3 and rIcHard s. ostFeld4
Many ecological systems are characterized by brief periods of increased resource availability called resource pulses. Empirical studies suggest that some populations of primary consumers grow rapidly in response to resource pulses, but others instead remain at low abundance despite increases in resource availability. Previous theory suggests that the lack of...
Recent controversy over whether biodiversity reduces disease risk (dilution effect) has focused on the ecology of Lyme disease, a tick-borne zoonosis. A criticism of the dilution effect is that increasing host species richness might amplify disease risk, assuming that total host abundance, and therefore feeding opportunities for ticks, increase with...