Sci Tech Daily As human development increasingly encroaches on the Amazon, researchers find that the growing boundary between forests and urban areas is accelerating the spillover of yellow fever into human populations.
Human activity is pushing deeper into previously undisturbed ecosystems, disrupting natural balances and creating new risks for people. A study from UC Santa Barbara finds that changes in land use are contributing to a rise in human yellow fever cases across the Amazon basin.
Published in Biology Letters, the research links this increase to the expanding boundary between forests and urban areas.
“Yellow fever is increasingly infecting humans when they are living close to the forest,” said author Kacie Ring, a doctoral student co-advised by Professors Andy MacDonald and Cherie Briggs. “And this is because humans are encroaching into areas where the disease is circulating naturally, disrupting its transmission cycle in the forest.”