@article{c13a59aa080a4a01a9b9e6e6c300b91d,
title = "Ecological countermeasures for preventing zoonotic disease outbreaks: when ecological restoration is a human health imperative",
abstract = "Ecological restoration should be regarded as a public health service. Unfortunately, the lack of quantitative linkages between environmental and human health has limited recognition of this principle. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic provides the impetus for further discussion. We propose ecological countermeasures as highly targeted, landscape-based interventions to arrest the drivers of land use-induced zoonotic spillover. We provide examples of ecological restoration activities that reduce zoonotic disease risk and a five-point action plan at the human-ecosystem health nexus. In conclusion, we make the case that ecological countermeasures are a tenet of restoration ecology with human health goals.",
author = "Reaser, {Jamie K.} and Arne Witt and Tabor, {Gary M.} and Hudson, {Peter J.} and Plowright, {Raina K.}",
note = "Funding Information: In addition to eradicating or controlling biota that act as spillover risk amplifiers, ecological countermeasures could be employed to augment key habitat resources under conditions of scarcity that stress wildlife hosts and/or drive them into human‐occupied areas for supplementation. In Bangladesh, bats () visit silver date palm trees () tapped for sap collection. Bats lick the shaved area of the tree and sometimes urinate or defecate in the collection pots, contaminating the sap with Nipah virus (Luby et al. 2006 ; McKee et al. 2020 ). Although covering sap containers has reduced disease risk (Nahar et al. 2013 ), the ideal solution would be an ecological countermeasure that draws bat populations to food resources not shared with people (Mckee et al. 2020 ). In Australia, “population distancing” is being used to reduce Hendra virus spillover from bats () to horses and subsequently humans, a process triggered by destruction of the bats' winter foraging habitat. When nutrient stressed due to loss of winter nectar resources, bat populations fragment, increase viral shedding, shift from natural landscapes into agro‐urban areas occupied by people and domestic animals. In these agricultural landscapes, horses become exposed to Hendra virus when feeding in the vicinity of fruit trees used by bats (Plowright et al. 2015 ; Plowright et al. 2016 ; Edson et al. 2019 ). Therefore, scientists have actively reached out to the farming community, encouraging them to keep unstabled horses in open pastures and away from trees in flower or fruit (Martin et al. 2015 ). A more socially acceptable and biologically meaningful risk mitigation approach would be to address the problem at its source; to draw the bats away from the agricultural landscape by restoring native habitat as an ecological countermeasure. Regeneration of winter‐flowering habitat via large‐scale native tree planting could potentially reverse these processes and reduce spillover events (P. Eby 2021, Griffith University. personal communication). Feasibility studies, including mechanistic modeling, are currently in progress (Plowright Grant, U.S. National Science Foundation #DEB‐1716698; DARPA PREEMPT program # D18AC00031). Pteropus medius Phoenix sylvestris Pteropus alecto Funding Information: We thank Robyn Egloff for help developing Figure 1 , as well as Stephen Murphy, Valter Amaral, and an anonymous reviewer for comments that helped improve the manuscript. RKP was supported by NSF DEB‐1716698, DARPA PREEMPT D18AC00031, and the USDA NIFA Hatch 1015891. For CABI, AW acknowledges core support from various agencies ( https://www.cabi.org/about-cabi/who-we-work-with/key-donors/ ). The authors declare that they do not have a conflict of interest. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021 Society for Ecological Restoration",
year = "2021",
month = may,
doi = "10.1111/rec.13357",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "29",
journal = "Restoration Ecology",
issn = "1061-2971",
publisher = "Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd",
number = "4",
}