WASHINGTON -- Climate warming is sparking disease epidemics in plants, animals and humans, a new study says.
The study, based on an analysis of existing data, suggests many pathogens and their carriers are able to spread farther and faster in warm weather and that as cold winters, which normally kill some of these carriers and control the population, become milder, more germs and parasites will be able to survive.
"We found a lot of evidence for strong temperature effects," said co-author Drew Harvell, a professor of marine ecology at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. "Temperature can amplify the effects of disease outbreaks enormously." The study by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, affiliated with the University of California at Santa Barbara, appears in Friday's issue of Science.
Stricken species include oysters ravaged by a parasite that thrives in warmer weather, Hawaiian songbirds beset by malaria-carrying mosquitoes that flourish in higher temperatures and corals weakened by high temperatures and made susceptible to a fungus.
People are affected as well. The authors noted a pattern between the climate associated with El Nino and the spread of the Rift Valley virus, which killed thousands of people in East Africa in 1998. The study found that in years when El Nino brought wetter, warmer weather, the virus -- and the mosquitoes that carried it -- replicated more quickly.
"Our data [are] telling us we need to take this seriously," co-author Rick Ostefield said. He added that important industries, including farming and fishing, are undergoing decline due to disease.
Co-author Andrew Dobson, an epidemiologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, said more needs to be known about infectious diseases in order to fight these epidemics.
The researchers found that climate warming is contributing to the spread of diseases in a variety of wildlife by looking at the most recent epidemics and the conditions related to temperature changes that could affect them.
"We looked through the newest scientific literature and looked across the board at individual studies, and saw these amazing patterns," said Dr. Ostefield, an animal ecologist at the Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. "We found a huge amount of similarity across the board."
|
If you have come to this page from an outside location click here to get back to mindfully.org |