Landscape Ecology Meets Disease Ecology in the Tropical America: Patterns, Trends, and Future Directions

• Published in: Current landscape ecology reports Vol. 9; no. 3; pp. 31 - 62
• Main Authors: Mancini, Matheus C. S., Barreto, Julia Rodrigues, Carvalho, Raquel L., Muylaert, Renata L., Arrais, Ricardo Corasa, Prist, Paula R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.09.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Disease prevention; Ecology; Forestry; Freshwater & Marine Ecology; Habitat fragmentation; Habitat loss; Health risks; Infectious diseases; Land use; Landscape Ecology; Life Sciences; Pathogenicity; Pathogens; Review; Risk; Trends; Vector-borne diseases; Vectors (Biology); Zoonoses; Human health; Tropical ecosystems; Landscape structure; Forest loss; Knowledge gaps; Emerging infectious diseases; Fragmentation
• ISSN: 2364-494X; 2364-494X
• DOI: 10.1007/s40823-024-00096-3

Purpose of Review In this paper, we synthesize the status and trends of studies assessing the effects of landscape structure and changes on zoonotic and vector-borne disease risk in the Tropical America region (i.e., spanning from Mexico to southern South America). Understanding how landscape structure affects disease emergence is critical to designing prevention measures and maintaining healthy ecosystems for both animals and humans. Recent Findings We found that there is a small number of articles being published each year regarding landscape structure and zoonotic and vector borne diseases in the Tropical Americas region, with a slight growing trend after 2013. We identified a large knowledge gap on the subject in most of the countries: in 15 of 27 countries, no article was found, and 72% of the current literature available is concentrated in only three countries (Brazil, Panama, and Colombia). Five diseases represent about 68% of the available knowledge, which compared to over 200 types of known zoonoses and vector-borne diseases, is an extremely low number. Most of the knowledge that exists for the region is about landscape composition, with few studies evaluating configuration parameters. Summary In general, landscape changes presented a positive effect on zoonotic and disease risk in most of the studies found, with habitat loss, fragmentation and increases in the amount of edge habitats leading to an increased risk of the diseases investigated. The continued integration of landscape ecology into disease ecology studies can increase the knowledge about how land use change is affecting animals and human health and can allow the establishment of guidelines to create landscapes that have a low pathogenicity.