Urbanization and the ecology of wildlife diseases

By C. Bradley, S. Altizer. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2006

850 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Urbanization is intensifying worldwide, with two-thirds of the human population expected to reside in cities within 30 years. The role of cities in human infectious disease is well established, but less is known about how urban landscapes influence wildlife–pathogen interactions. Here, we draw on recent advances in wildlife epidemiology to consider how environmental changes linked with urbanization can alter the biology of hosts, pathogens and vectors. Although urbanization reduces the abundance of many wildlife parasites, transmission can, in some cases, increase among urban-adapted hosts, with effects on rarer wildlife or those living beyond city limits. Continued rapid urbanization, together with risks posed by multi-host pathogens for humans and vulnerable wildlife populations, emphasize the need for future research on wildlife diseases in urban landscapes.

Subfields: Agronomy and Crop Science, Infectious Diseases, Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2ec0a3e07a5cafd4814da001bb468436a353d41f

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Citations in the corpus

Effects of urbanisation on disease prevalence and age structure in blackbird Turdus merula populations (2009, background): “Within the latter category, changes in the risk of parasitism and disease seem particularly likely to arise (Bradley and Altizer 2007).”
Urbanization and Disease Emergence: Dynamics at the Wildlife–Livestock–Human Interface (2017, background): “Human factors such as population density, migration, trade, sanitation, and access to clean water can promote the transmission of pathogens and alter vector dynamics, while social factors that drive health inequality (socioeconomic status, housing, race, ethnicity, gender, and education) also influe”
Urban heat island impacts on plant phenology: intra-urban variability and response to land cover (2016, background): “© 2016 IOPPublishing Ltd change (Menzel and Fabian 1999, Schwartz and Reiter 2000) and thus increase the survival and activity of harmful insects and pathogens (Bradley and Altizer 2007).”
Roles of Raptors in a Changing World: From Flagships to Providers of Key Ecosystem Services (2016, background): “Furthermore, some heavy metal and pesticide pollutants become concentrated in the surroundings of developed areas and can be highly detrimental to vertebrate health (Bradley and Altizer, 2006) and adversely affect urban raptors (e.g. Newsome et al., 2010).”
Effects of environmental change on helminth infections in amphibians: exploring the emergence of Ribeiroia and Echinostoma infections in North America. (2009, background): “Growing attention has recently focused on the question of how environmental change affects host–macroparasite interactions (Bradley and Altizer 2007 ; McKenzie and Townsend 2007 ; Johnson and Carpenter 2008).”
Composition of physiologically important fatty acids in great tits differs between urban and rural populations on a seasonal basis (2015, background): “, Salmonella and Mycoplasma ) ( Bradley and Altizer , 2007 ) , an arachidonic acid - mediated inflammatory response could enhance the negative health effects of such antigens ( Isaksson , 2015 ) .”
Climatic variability and landscape heterogeneity impact urban mosquito diversity and vector abundance and infection (2011, background): “In this sense, cities are of special interest because of the potential for vast disease transmission and pathogen exposure (Bradley and Altizer 2007), including vector-borne diseases that affect humans in both developing and wealthy nations (Utzinger and Keiser 2006, Ruiz et al. 2007).”
Capture and Reproductive Trends in Summer Bat Communities in West Virginia: Assessing the Impact of White-Nose Syndrome (2012, background): “The ecological phenomenon of disease-mediated, competitive release is well-documented for a variety of species (Bradley and Altizer 2006).”
Feeding birds in our towns and cities: a global research opportunity (2008, background): “Feeders have been implicated in the spread of several important avian diseases (Bradley and Altizer 2006).”
The breeding performance of raptors in urban landscapes: a review and meta-analysis (2017, background): “The process of urbanisation can alter species assemblages, resulting in changes in trophic networks such as the abundance of parasites and disease (Bradley and Altizer 2007).”