Conventional wisdom among ecologists holds that the more species there are inhabiting an ecosystem, the less vulnerable any one species will be to a threat like a parasite. A new study of tadpoles at the University of Wisconsin-Madison illustrates how overlapping biological and environmental factors can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities. The researchers found that environmental pollutants like road salt influence whether increased biodiversity helps or hinders disease outbreaks in wildlife, which can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities.
"There's an idea in the field of disease ecology that communities with more species living together, communities with higher biodiversity, are less vulnerable to diseases than less biodiverse communities," says Jessica Hua, a W-Madison professor of forest and wildlife ecology.