Using those records, Hillary Young, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, compared rodent abundance in tracts free of large mammals with similar areas open to all wildlife. She and her colleagues discovered that the landscapes rid of these large mammals contained twice as many rodents as the uncontrolled areas. The findings were published in May in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA. Out of the 11 mammal species present on the land devoid of megafauna, Mearnss pouched mice were most populous, accounting for 75 percent of the total count. As expected, the chances of finding a flea carrying the bacterium Bartonella also doubled. Bartonella infects mammals, including humans, and can cause major organ damage. “Changes in wildlife communities can and do cause significant impacts on disease risk,” says Young, who adds that the results should apply to all places, not just the African savanna. She hopes that if people understand that preserving wildlife also preserves their own health, perhaps they will be less likely to tolerate losses to biodiversity.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 13:42:25 +0000
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