Parasites, and the diseases they cause, are important from an ecological and evolutionary perspective because they can negatively affect host fitness and can regulate host populations. Consequently, conservation biology has long recognized the vital role that parasites can play in the process of species endangerment and recovery. However, we are only beginning to understand how deeply parasites are embedded in ecological systems, and there is a growing recognition of the important ways in which parasites affect ecosystem structure and function. Thus, there is an urgent need to revisit how parasites are viewed from a conservation perspective and broaden the role that disease ecology plays in conservation-related research and outcomes. This review broadly focusses on the role that disease ecology can play in biological conservation. Our review specifically emphasizes on how the integration of tools and analytical approaches associated with both disease and molecular ecology can be leveraged to aid conservation biology. Our review first concentrates on disease-mediated extinctions and wildlife epidemics. We then focus on elucidating how host–parasite interactions has improved our understanding of the eco-evolutionary dynamics affecting hosts at the individual, population, community and ecosystem scales. We believe that the role of parasites as drivers and indicators of ecosystem health is especially an exciting area of research that has the potential to fundamentally alter our view of parasites and their role in biological conservation. The review concludes with a broad overview of the current and potential applications of modern genomic tools in disease ecology to aid biological conservation.

中文翻译：

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迈向更健康的保护范式：整合疾病和分子生态学以帮助生物保护†

从生态和进化的角度来看，寄生虫及其引起的疾病很重要，因为它们会对宿主健康产生负面影响，并可以调节宿主种群。因此，保护​​生物学早就认识到寄生虫在物种濒临灭绝和恢复过程中可以发挥的重要作用。然而，我们才刚刚开始了解寄生虫在生态系统中的嵌入程度，并且人们越来越认识到寄生虫影响生态系统结构和功能的重要方式。因此，迫切需要重新审视如何从保护的角度看待寄生虫，并扩大疾病生态学在保护相关研究和成果中的作用。本综述广泛关注疾病生态学在生物保护中的作用。我们的评论特别强调如何利用与疾病和分子生态学相关的工具和分析方法的整合来帮助保护生物学。我们的评论首先集中在疾病介导的灭绝和野生动物流行病上。然后，我们专注于阐明宿主 - 寄生虫相互作用如何提高我们对影响个体、种群、社区和生态系统规模的宿主的生态进化动态的理解。我们相信寄生虫作为生态系统健康的驱动因素和指标的作用尤其是一个令人兴奋的研究领域，它有可能从根本上改变我们对寄生虫的看法及其在生物保护中的作用。