<p>Habitat destruction and biodiversity loss, driven by deforestation, global transportation, encroaching cities, among others, can burden humans with more infectious diseases, says University of Vermont-Michigan (UVM) biologist Joe Roman. <br />This is part of a global pattern, say Roman and Environment Protection Agency (EPA) scientist Montira Pongsiri, that links biodiversity loss with infectious diseases. <br />"Lots of new diseases are emerging and diseases were once local are now global," adds Roman, a wildlife expert. "Diseases like West Nile Virus have spread around the world very quickly."<br /><br />This is not the first time humans have faced a raft of new diseases. About 10,000 years ago, humans invented farming. <br />This move from hunting to agriculture brought permanent settlements, domestication of animals, and changes in diet. It also brought new infectious diseases, in what scientists call an "epidemiologic transition".<br /><br />Another of these transitions came with the Industrial Revolution. Infectious diseases decreased in many places while cancer, allergies and birth defects shot up.<br />Now, it seems, another epidemiologic transition is upon us. A host of new infectious diseases - like West Nile Virus - have appeared. And infectious diseases thought to be in decline - like malaria - have re-asserted themselves and spread.<br />"Ours is the first article to link the current epidemiological transition," says Pongsiri, an environmental health expert in EPA Office of the Science Advisor, "with biodiversity change, decline and extinction".<br /><br />"People have been working on this in individual diseases but no one has put all the studies together to compare them," says Roman. <br />"We've reviewed all those studies and show that emergence or re-emergence of many diseases is related to loss of biodiversity," says Pongsiri, according to an UVM release. <br />Their study will appear in the December issue of Bioscience. <br /></p>
<p>Habitat destruction and biodiversity loss, driven by deforestation, global transportation, encroaching cities, among others, can burden humans with more infectious diseases, says University of Vermont-Michigan (UVM) biologist Joe Roman. <br />This is part of a global pattern, say Roman and Environment Protection Agency (EPA) scientist Montira Pongsiri, that links biodiversity loss with infectious diseases. <br />"Lots of new diseases are emerging and diseases were once local are now global," adds Roman, a wildlife expert. "Diseases like West Nile Virus have spread around the world very quickly."<br /><br />This is not the first time humans have faced a raft of new diseases. About 10,000 years ago, humans invented farming. <br />This move from hunting to agriculture brought permanent settlements, domestication of animals, and changes in diet. It also brought new infectious diseases, in what scientists call an "epidemiologic transition".<br /><br />Another of these transitions came with the Industrial Revolution. Infectious diseases decreased in many places while cancer, allergies and birth defects shot up.<br />Now, it seems, another epidemiologic transition is upon us. A host of new infectious diseases - like West Nile Virus - have appeared. And infectious diseases thought to be in decline - like malaria - have re-asserted themselves and spread.<br />"Ours is the first article to link the current epidemiological transition," says Pongsiri, an environmental health expert in EPA Office of the Science Advisor, "with biodiversity change, decline and extinction".<br /><br />"People have been working on this in individual diseases but no one has put all the studies together to compare them," says Roman. <br />"We've reviewed all those studies and show that emergence or re-emergence of many diseases is related to loss of biodiversity," says Pongsiri, according to an UVM release. <br />Their study will appear in the December issue of Bioscience. <br /></p>