It can be difficult to establish the conservation significance of endemic infectious diseases—those that are well established in a population—in contrast with infectious diseases that are still invading. This difficulty can have important implications for designing policy to address species declines. The infectious diseases of koalas provide an ideal case study to examine issues involved in identifying the role of endemic disease in conservation biology. Koala populations are in decline, amidst claims for many years that infectious diseases, particularly those with chlamydial etiology, play a key role in this loss. However, weak associations between prevalence of infection, clinical signs of disease, and population decline mean that it remains unclear whether infectious disease is a primary driver of koala population decline. There are multiple causes of koala decline including drought, habitat destruction, and disease. Well‐designed experiments, linked to appropriate models, are necessary to determine the true role of infectious disease in the current koala population declines and whether a focus on disease is likely to be a feasible, let alone the most cost‐effective, means of preventing further declines.

中文翻译：

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评估地方病在保护中的重要性-以无尾熊，衣原体和无尾熊逆转录病毒为例

与仍在蔓延的传染病形成对比，很难确定地方性传染病（在人群中已充分建立的）的保护意义。这一困难对于设计解决物种减少的政策可能具有重要意义。考拉的传染病提供了一个理想的案例研究，以检查与确定地方病在保护生物学中的作用有关的问题。多年来一直声称传染病，特别是衣原体病因的传染病，在这种损失中起着关键作用，因此考拉的种群数量在下降。然而，感染率，疾病的临床体征和人口下降之间的关联性较弱，这意味着尚不清楚传染病是否是无尾熊种群下降的主要驱动力。考拉数量下降的原因有多种，包括干旱，栖息地破坏和疾病。设计良好的实验并与适当的模型关联，对于确定传染病在当前无尾熊种群数量下降中的真正作用以及关注疾病是否可能是可行的，更不用说最具成本效益的预防手段，是必要的进一步下降。