Rija, A. A. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2026

Disease dynamics during ecosystem restoration and faunal reassembly

Biodiversity recovery is increasingly promoted as a strategy for restoring ecosystem services, including the regulation of infectious diseases. However, it remains unclear how the potential for pathogen transmission interacts with the timing of biodiversity recovery and the life history of the recovering species to shape the disease dynamics during restoration. Here, we developed a stochastic multi-host metacommunity epidemic model to investigate how the timing of the establishment of slow life history species, pathogen transmissibility, and host-community succession jointly influence disease outcomes in recovering ecosystems. Pathogen transmissibility (R_0) was the dominant predictor of epidemic intensity, whereas the delayed timing of establishment of slow life history species during restoration emerged as a major ecological determinant of pathogen persistence. Delayed establishment of slow life-history hosts consistently increased disease prevalence and persistence by prolonging the dominance of highly competent fast life-history hosts. Generalized additive models revealed a strong interaction between delayed timing of slow life-history species establishment and pathogen transmissibility, explaining more than 90% of the variation in pathogen persistence. The influence of timing of establishment of slow life history species was weak for pathogens with low transmission potential but increased markedly as R_0 increased. Sensitivity analyses further showed that, once pathogen transmissibility was controlled, timing of establishment became the strongest predictor of persistence, whereas among-host spillover transmission primarily influenced the speed of epidemic spread. In contrast, maximum species richness had comparatively little influence on disease outcomes, indicating that the functional composition and assembly timing of recovering communities may be more important than richness alone for predicting disease dynamics. Together, these results demonstrate that disease regulation during ecosystem restoration depends not only on pathogen transmissibility, but also on the life history traits and the timing of establishment of species within recovering communities. Our findings identify life history traits and the timing of when functional communities are restored as a key ecological lever influencing long-term pathogen maintenance in restored ecosystems.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Spatial distribution and research trend of illegal activities and the factors associated with wild mammal population declines in protected areas

Illegal activities are a persistent problem in many protected areas, but an overview of the extent of this problem and its impact is lacking. We review 35 years (1980-1914) of research across the globe to examine the spatial distribution of research and socio-ecological factors influencing population decline within protected areas under illegal activities pressure. From 92 papers reporting 1048 species/site combinations, more than 350 species comprising mammals, reptiles, birds, fishes and molluscs were reported to have been extracted illegally from 146 protected areas across four continents. Research in illegal activities has increased substantially during the review period but also shows strong taxonomic and geographic biases towards large wild mammals and African continent respectively, suggesting persistent poaching pressures on wild mammals in African protected areas. Population declines were most frequent i) where there was commercial poaching as opposed to subsistence poaching alone, ii) in countries with a low human development index particularly in strict protected areas and iii) for species with a body mass over 100 kg. Habitat loss associated with greater land use change had an additional significant impact on population decline, particularly in the less-strict categories (IUCN III-VI) of protected area across the continents. Overall, these findings provide evidence that illegal activities are most likely to cause species declines of large-bodied animals in protected areas in resource-poor countries regardless of protected area conservation status (i.e. IUCN category). Given the mounting pressures of illegal activities, additional conservation effort such as improving anti-poaching strategies and conservation resources in terms of improving funding and personnel directed at this problem is a growing priority.

zoology↗