- Tangled Bank #99; apologies for the late link.
- Participatory approach to wild boar problem — in Brighton, England!
Disease hotspots mapped
A letter in Nature this week looks at “Global trends in emerging infectious diseases.” ((Kate E. Jones, Nikkita G. Patel, Marc A. Levy, Adam Storeygard, Deborah Balk, John L. Gittleman & Peter Daszak. Nature 451, 990-993 (21 February 2008); doi:10.1038/nature06536.)) It includes some interesting maps, including these:
They show the global distribution of relative risk of an emerging infectious disease (EID) event caused by: (a) zoonotic pathogens from wildlife, (b) zoonotic pathogens from non-wildlife, (c) drug-resistant pathogens and (d) vector-borne pathogens. That’s based on climate, human population density and growth, and wildlife host species richness. Note in particular the map in the top right-hand corner: basically risk of zoonotic pathogens jumping to humans from livestock. Compare this livestock density ((FAO has more data on this.)):
Not a great match with density of domesticated animals. Maybe the correlation would be better with livestock diversity?
Talking about health and biodiversity
The 2nd International Conference on Health and Biodiversity will kick off next week in sunny Galway, Ireland. As ever, if you’re going to be there, and would like to tell the world about it, you’re more than welcome to use these pages to do so. Meanwhile, in Maccarese, Bioversity International has a space on its website for discussion on how biodiversity can be used to fight hunger and malnutrition: have your say!
Oekologie #14
Another of those pesky blog carnivals is up for your reading pleasure. We’re in there, with Luigi’s Modest Proposal to mash walkers with missing species. There’s also an interesting link to Coffee and Conservation, a new one to me, with a close look at just what shade-grown coffee means on the slopes of Panama. Eye-opening.
A devoted gardner speaks
Michael Pollan looks at things from the point of view of agricultural biodiversity, and concludes we are all being manipulated by corn. ((Thanks to Hugh for the headsup.)) ((Sorry, the video is slightly wider than the column, but that’s down to the folks at TED, not us, and there’s nothing we can do about it other than distort Pollan.))