How does biodiversity prevent infectious diseases?
In: Biology
It doesn’t “prevent infectious disease”, it “prevents a single infectious disease from wiping out the whole ecosystem”.
Consider the banana. The original banana, the one banana flavoring tastes like, was the Gros Michel. It was the only banana widely cultivated † in large quantities until the 1820s. A single disease, called Panama Disease from the location the fungus was first recognized, wiped out all the Gros Michel bananas in the world over a few years. Not learning the lesson, humans shifted for the Cavendish banana species and made even larger ecosystems of this single cloned species. Now Tropical Race 4, a relative of panama disease is wiping out all the Cavendish banana plants.
† Ignoring plantains and other cooking bananas, which are a very different food to most people.
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