The role of ecological disruption in disease emergence.
* "Global commodity markets drive deforestation in Australia, one byproduct of which is the spillover of Hendra virus."
"More than one in five bat species globally are under severe threat from human pressures such as habitat loss and degradation, climate change, overexploitation and disease. Their population numbers and collective health, including the constellation of viruses they carry as a group, respond to these disturbances. Australian flying foxes are no different. The emergence of Hendra virus suggested that something had tipped the ecological balance."
A wildlife ecologist believes "that the virus was being driven out by rapid changes in bat ecology, specifically in the loss of trees that traditionally provided them with food."
"In the short history of European settlement in Australia, around half the woodlands and forests have been modified or removed for agriculture or urban development. At the turn of the century, the period when things began to change in the researchers’ accumulated d
... show moreThe role of ecological disruption in disease emergence.
* "Global commodity markets drive deforestation in Australia, one byproduct of which is the spillover of Hendra virus."
"More than one in five bat species globally are under severe threat from human pressures such as habitat loss and degradation, climate change, overexploitation and disease. Their population numbers and collective health, including the constellation of viruses they carry as a group, respond to these disturbances. Australian flying foxes are no different. The emergence of Hendra virus suggested that something had tipped the ecological balance."
A wildlife ecologist believes "that the virus was being driven out by rapid changes in bat ecology, specifically in the loss of trees that traditionally provided them with food."
"In the short history of European settlement in Australia, around half the woodlands and forests have been modified or removed for agriculture or urban development. At the turn of the century, the period when things began to change in the researchers’ accumulated data, Australia’s deforestation rate was the sixth highest in the world."
"It is no coincidence that, of all places, Hendra virus emerged in Queensland. Nowhere else in the country had seen more of its blossoming native trees removed.In some parts of subtropical Australia, more than 95% of their winter foraging area has been destroyed."
"This modified interface between people, horses and bats explain why the disease was being detected with a greater frequency." >>
theguardian.com/science/2026/a…
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Image: Cleared land and native vegetation in the Brigalow Belt in central Queensland. Photograph: Auscape/UIG/Getty Images/ Guardian
In the 1990s, scientists in Australia began searching for the origins of a new disease showing up in places hundreds of kilometres apart. They discovered the origin: bats. And found a way to reduce the risk of bat disease spillovers
Guardian staff reporter (the Guardian)
