Birds live on a human-dominated planet. Over half of Earth’s ice-free land area has been modified by anthropogenic disturbance including deforestation, agriculture, and urbanization, impacting ecosystems around the world. Disturbances associated with these land use types, such as habitat loss, fragmentation, and pollution, influence the dynamics between birds, their pathogens, and the environment they share. Such shifts in disease dynamics can arise through the impacts of land use change on aspects of hosts, vectors, and/or pathogens, including vector and host abundance, behavior, and physiology, and through pathogen persistence in the environment. To address this complexity, the major causes of land use change that can impact birds across diverse ecosystems are described. The chapter then discusses key changes associated with land use change such as habitat loss, pollution, and anthropogenic resources that are relevant to avian disease ecology. These key changes are followed by a synthesis of documented changes in avian health with urbanization, the fastest growing type of land use change on Earth. The chapter closes with relevant implications for One Health systems and future directions for advancing avian disease ecology in rapidly changing landscapes.
Stage-Specific Parasitism by a Mutualistic Partner Can Increase the Host Abundance
