Zoonotic viruses are defined as an infectious disease that can affect humans through animal contact. In most cases as humans don’t come into contact with wild animals we remain relatively close to our homes and avoid crossing the line towards wildlife and the same can go from creatures living outside. Now taking a look at loss of forest habitat due to the expansion of resources for humans can increase the interaction between animals and humans, therefore also increasing the chances of zoonotic viruses to occur. So by those connections we are mostly at fault for our illness due to the expanding population. A great example of this is swine flu and malaria, which are diseases that are passed down from contact with animals. By Reducing the loss of forest habitat we can also reduce the rate of zoonotic viruses exposure. Furthermore the loss of habitat can also affect the surrounding land’s biodiversity through urbanization. Since the population of the human race is increasing at an exponential rate we must cover more land to support the growth, hence removing forests to modernise causing the removal of habitats and increase the interaction with animals. Therefore zoonotic viruses increase when the overall biodiversity decreases through the loss of habitat, the link between these concepts just illustrates how majority of ideas in biology are interconnected with each other and have to rely on each other to have the most outcome to occur, generally speaking these concepts are one the same and one must occur for the other to work.
Applied Plant Ecology Winter 2020 