The control and prevention of vector-borne and zoonotic diseases is often based on the reduction of host or vector populations, involving but not limited to preventative culling and use of insecticides. Yet, destructive interventions such as these have shown several limitations including ineffectiveness on arthropods and negative impacts on ecosystems. An alternative strategy would be to rely on the natural ecosystem functions and their careful management to regulate such diseases. The goal of our work was to evaluate existing scientific evidence on potential links between ecosystem components/functions and 14 vector-borne and zoonotic diseases impacting human health and answer the question: “What evidence exists on the impact of specific ecosystem components and functions on infectious diseases?”. We searched for scientific articles published in English and French and screened them in a 3-round process (title, abstract and full-text). Articles were retained, without any geographical limitation, if they matched the following eligibility criteria: an exposure/intervention linked to changes in biological communities, habitats, or landscapes; an outcome consisting of any measure of infection in vector, animal or human hosts; and the presence of a comparator, in time and/or in space. The results are presented as a systematic map, followed by a narrative review where the amount of papers allowed for synthesis. Searches in 5 scientific publication databases allowed to retrieve 9723 unique articles, among which 207 were retained after the screening process. The amount of relevant literature was highly variable depending on diseases, and the types of exposures also varied greatly among studies focusing on the same disease. A hundred articles presented in the map were unique in their “disease x exposure” combination and thus not eligible for further narrative description. The remaining 107 articles were organized in 34 “disease x exposure” groups, encompassing 9 out of the 14 initial diseases. The groups were composed of 2 to 16 articles and were examined to provide a description of the current state of knowledge for those diseases. Studies investigating the interaction between infectious diseases and ecosystems components and functions are still very scarce, and certain diseases are much more studied than others. Out of 14 diseases, 8 generated less than 10 relevant articles, while 2 diseases (Lyme disease and West Nile disease) represented 44% of all relevant studies. Although several vector-borne diseases included in the review represent a major health issue in the world, such as malaria or dengue, they have been exclusively studied under the prism of land-use, and we were unable to find relevant studies that tested the regulatory role of animal biodiversity-related functions. The role of predation in the regulation of vector and host populations has rarely been studied, with the exception of schistosomiasis. The dilution and amplification effects were addressed in several studies focusing on the composition of ecological communities. This map is a first step and could be upgraded in order to guide future research projects with the aim to conduct meta-analysis and build a robust evidence base to inform decision-making.

中文翻译：

---

有哪些证据表明特定的生态系统组成和功能对传染病的影响？系统地图

媒介传播和人畜共患疾病的控制和预防通常基于减少宿主或媒介种群，包括但不限于预防性杀灭和使用杀虫剂。然而，诸如此类的破坏性干预措施已显示出若干局限性，包括对节肢动物的无效以及对生态系统的负面影响。一种替代策略是依靠自然生态系统功能及其精心管理来调节此类疾病。我们工作的目标是评估有关生态系统组件/功能与影响人类健康的14种媒介传播和人畜共患疾病之间潜在联系的现有科学证据，并回答以下问题：“存在哪些证据表明特定生态系统组件和功能对传染性的影响疾病？”。我们搜索了以英文和法文出版的科学文章，并通过3轮流程（标题，摘要和全文）对它们进行了筛选。只要符合以下资格标准，就可以保留文章，没有任何地理限制：与生物群落，栖息地或景观变化相关的暴露/干预；由媒介，动物或人类宿主的任何感染措施组成的结果；以及在时间和/或空间上是否存在比较器。结果以系统地图的形式呈现，随后进行叙述性回顾，其中综述了可供综合使用的论文数量。在5个科学出版物数据库中进行的搜索可以检索9723个独特的文章，其中207个在筛选过程后被保留。相关文献的数量因疾病而异，在针对同一疾病的研究中，暴露的类型也相差很大。地图中呈现的100篇文章在“疾病x暴露”组合中是独一无二的，因此不适合进行进一步的叙述性描述。其余的107篇文章分为34个“疾病x暴露”组，涵盖了14种初始疾病中的9种。这些小组由2至16篇文章组成，并经过检查以提供对这些疾病的当前知识状态的描述。关于传染病与生态系统组成和功能之间相互作用的研究仍十分匮乏，某些疾病的研究要比其他疾病多得多。在14种疾病中，有8种产生的相关文章少于10条，而2种疾病（莱姆病和西尼罗河病）占所有相关研究的44％。尽管评估中包括的几种媒介传播疾病代表了世界上的主要健康问题，例如疟疾或登革热，但它们仅在土地利用的角度下进行了研究，我们无法找到相关的研究来检验法规的有效性。动物生物多样性相关功能的作用。除血吸虫病外，很少研究捕食在调节病媒和宿主种群中的作用。在关注生态群落组成的几项研究中讨论了稀释和放大作用。该地图是第一步，可以进行升级，以指导未来的研究项目，以进行荟萃分析并建立可靠的证据基础来为决策提供依据。