Wildlife diseases can present significant threats to ecological systems and biological diversity, as well as domestic animal and human health. However, determining the dynamics of wildlife diseases and understanding the impact on host populations is a significant challenge. In Hawai‘i, there is ample circumstantial evidence that introduced avian malaria (Plasmodium relictum) has played an important role in the decline and extinction of many native forest birds.

Nature threads the very fabric of human lives in remote forest areas of developing countries. Unfortunately, we do not fully understand how ecosystem services (such as human health benefits) could be secured by conserving natural capital. Thus, we analyze a rich dataset on disease, climate, demography, land uses, and conservation policies in the Brazilian Amazon. Unsurprisingly, we find that the health dividends vary across conservation policies and are small relative to the overall burden of these diseases.

Malaria remains endemic in 21 countries of the American continent with an estimated 427,000 cases per year. Approximately 10% of these occur in the Mesoamerican and Caribbean regions. During the last decade, malaria transmission in Mesoamerica showed a decrease of ~85%; whereas, in the Caribbean region, Hispaniola (comprising the Dominican Republic [DR] and Haiti) presented an overall rise in malaria transmission, primarily due to a steady increase in Haiti, while DR experienced a significant transmission decrease in this period.