Richard S. Ostfeld

TL;DR: To improve the ability to predict epidemics in wild populations, it will be necessary to separate the independent and interactive effects of multiple climate drivers on disease impact.

TL;DR: Overall, despite many remaining questions, current evidence indicates that preserving intact ecosystems and their endemic biodiversity should generally reduce the prevalence of infectious diseases.

TL;DR: A suite of mechanisms through which diversity could increase or decrease disease risk is described, and the potential applicability of these mechanisms for both vector-borne and non-vector-borne diseases, and for both specialist and generalist pathogens is illustrated.

TL;DR: This study suggests that the preservation of vertebrate biodiversity and community composition can reduce the incidence of Lyme disease, and identifies important “dilution hosts” (e.g., squirrels), characterized by high tick burdens, low reservoir competence, and high population density, as well as “rescue hosts’’, which are capable of maintaining high disease risk when mouse density is low.

TL;DR: This review highlights research progress and gaps that have emerged during the past decade and develops a predictive framework that integrates knowledge from ecophysiology and community ecology with modeling approaches to mitigate the impacts of climate-driven disease emergence.