Anthropogenic landscape alteration promotes higher disease risk in wild New Zealand avian communities.

ABSTRACT: Anthropogenic changes can have dramatic effects on wild populations. Moreover, by promoting the emergence of vector-borne diseases in many ecosystems, those changes can lead to local extinction of native wildlife. One of those diseases, avian malaria, has been shown to be on the rise in New Zealand, threatening native bird species that are among the most extinction-prone in the world. It is thus of prime importance to better understand the potential cascading effects that anthropogenic modifications have on those fragile species. Here, we aim to test how long-lasting modification to regional environmental filters can subsequently alter local biotic filters, in turn promoting the emergence of avian malaria in New Zealand avian communities. To this end, we used Bayesian structural equation m

SUBMITTER: Filion A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8956180 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature