Species diversity has been proposed to decrease prevalence of disease in a wide variety of host-pathogen systems, in a phenomenon labeled the dilution effect. This phenomenon was first proposed and tested for vector-borne diseases but was later extended to directly transmitted parasite systems such as hantavirus. Though there seems to be clear evidence for the dilution effect in some hantavirus/rodent systems, the generality of this hypothesis remains debated. In the present meta-analysis, we examined the evidence supporting the dilution effect for hantavirus/rodent systems in the Americas. General linear models employed on data from 56 field studies identified the abundance of the reservoir rodent species and its relative proportion in the community as the only relevant variables explaining the prevalence of antibodies against hantavirus in the reservoir. Thus, we found no clear support for the dilution effect hypothesis for hantavirus/rodent systems in the Americas.

中文翻译：

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美洲的汉坦病毒感染和生物多样性。

已经提出了物种多样性以减少在多种宿主-病原体系统中疾病的流行，这种现象被标记为稀释效应。该现象首先被提出并用于媒介传播疾病的测试，但后来扩展到直接传播的寄生虫系统，例如汉坦病毒。尽管在某些汉坦病毒/啮齿类动物系统中似乎有明显的稀释作用证据，但该假设的普遍性仍在争论中。在当前的荟萃分析中，我们研究了支持美洲汉坦病毒/啮齿动物系统稀释作用的证据。根据来自56个现场研究的数据所采用的通用线性模型，确定了储层啮齿动物物种的丰富度及其在群落中的相对比例，这是解释储库中针对汉坦病毒的抗体流行程度的唯一相关变量。因此，我们没有发现对美洲汉坦病毒/啮齿类动物系统稀释效应假设的明确支持。