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Biodiversity loss underlies the dilution effect of biodiversity

View ORCID ProfileFletcher W. Halliday, View ORCID ProfileJason R. Rohr, View ORCID ProfileAnna-Liisa Laine
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.20.050377
Fletcher W. Halliday
1Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057, Zurich, CH
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  • For correspondence: fletcher.w.halliday@gmail.com
Jason R. Rohr
2Department of Biological Sciences, Eck Institute of Global Health, Environmental Change Initiative, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA
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Anna-Liisa Laine
1Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, 8057, Zurich, CH
3Organismal & Evolutionary Biology Research Program, PO Box 65, FI-00014 University of Helsinki, Finland
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Abstract

The dilution effect predicts increasing biodiversity to reduce the risk of infection, but the generality of this effect remains unresolved. Because biodiversity loss generates predictable changes in host community competence, we hypothesized that biodiversity loss might drive the dilution effect. We tested this hypothesis by reanalyzing four previously published meta-analyses that came to contradictory conclusions regarding generality of the dilution effect. In the context of biodiversity loss, our analyses revealed a unifying pattern: dilution effects were inconsistently observed for natural biodiversity gradients, but were commonly observed for biodiversity gradients generated by disturbances causing losses of native biodiversity. Incorporating biodiversity loss into tests of generality of the dilution effect further indicated that scale-dependency may strengthen the dilution effect only when biodiversity gradients are driven by biodiversity loss. Together, these results help to resolve one of the most contentious issues in disease ecology: the generality of the dilution effect.

Competing Interest Statement

The authors have declared no competing interest.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission.
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Posted April 21, 2020.
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Biodiversity loss underlies the dilution effect of biodiversity
Fletcher W. Halliday, Jason R. Rohr, Anna-Liisa Laine
bioRxiv 2020.04.20.050377; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.20.050377
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Biodiversity loss underlies the dilution effect of biodiversity
Fletcher W. Halliday, Jason R. Rohr, Anna-Liisa Laine
bioRxiv 2020.04.20.050377; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.20.050377

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