{
  "abstract": "Despite its major implications for biodiversity conservation and public health, the generality of a protective effect of biodiversity on zoonotic pathogen transmission (i.e., the dilution effect) remains strongly debated. This controversy may partly arise from the diversity of analytical approaches used, but also from the spatial scales at which studies are conducted. Here, we explicitly test whether increasing the spatial scale of analysis affects the detection of the relationship between hantavirus infection prevalence and rodent species richness, using a global dataset spanning multiple regions. Although the association between species richness and infection prevalence remains negative across all spatial scales, we show that the magnitude of the dilution effect progressively weakens as spatial aggregation increases and can become statistically non-significant at coarse spatial resolutions. These results, which are consistent across world regions, indicate that the dilution effect is likely a general feature of hantavirus–rodent systems, but that its empirical detection is highly sensitive to the spatial scale of analysis. Our findings highlight how large-scale spatial aggregation can mask underlying ecological processes and emphasize the need to carefully match spatial scale to the biological mechanisms under investigation when testing biodiversity–disease relationships. Finally, we discuss the ecological and methodological mechanisms that may obscure dilution effects and outline why scale-explicit approaches are essential for robust inference in biodiversity-disease research.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Laboratorio de Virología, Departamento de Microbiología e Inmunología, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México",
    "MIVEGEC, Université de Montpellier, IRD, CNRS, Montpellier, France",
    "Departamento de Etología, Fauna Silvestre y Animales de Laboratorio, Facultad de Medicina Veterinaria y Zootecnia, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México, México",
    "Department of Environmental Science and Technology, College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, United States of America",
    "George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, United States of America",
    "Department of Biology, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas, United States of America",
    "Population Biology, Ecology, and Evolution Program, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America",
    "Organización Panamericana de la Salud (OPS), Ciudad de México, México",
    "Departamento de Ciencias Ambientales, División de Ciencias Biológicas y de la Salud, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Unidad Lerma, Lerma de Villada, Estado de México, México"
  ],
  "article_type": "Research Article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 13,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Ana Laura Vigueras-Galván"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "Celine Arnathau"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "Oscar Rico-Chávez"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Matthew T. Milholland"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "María L. Vargas"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        5
      ],
      "name": "Gerardo Suzán"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        6
      ],
      "name": "Carlos Zambrana-Torrelio"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        7
      ],
      "name": "Iván Castro-Arellano"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        8
      ],
      "name": "James N. Mills"
    },
    {
      "name": "Maria Eugenia Morales"
    },
    {
      "name": "Heliot Zarza Villanueva"
    },
    {
      "name": "Benjamin Roche"
    },
    {
      "name": "Audrey Arnal"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dyw4x2vdzhkpf.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045",
  "fulltext_url": "https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045",
  "id": "dyw4x2vdzhkpf",
  "issns": [
    "2767-3375"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-4.0",
  "licence_label": "CC BY 4.0",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "2739|Zoonotic diseases and public health"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Ecology/Community ecology/Community structure"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Ecology/Ecological metrics/Species diversity"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Microbiology/Medical microbiology/Microbial pathogens/Viral pathogens/Bunyaviruses/Hantavirus"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Organisms/Eukaryota/Animals/Vertebrates/Amniotes/Mammals/Rodents"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Organisms/Viruses/RNA viruses/Bunyaviruses/Hantavirus"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Organisms/Viruses/Viral pathogens/Bunyaviruses/Hantavirus"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Biology and life sciences/Zoology/Animals/Vertebrates/Amniotes/Mammals/Rodents"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Ecology and environmental sciences/Ecology/Community ecology/Community structure"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Ecology and environmental sciences/Ecology/Ecological metrics/Species diversity"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Medicine and health sciences/Pathology and laboratory medicine/Pathogenesis/Host-pathogen interactions"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/Medicine and health sciences/Pathology and laboratory medicine/Pathogens/Microbial pathogens/Viral pathogens/Bunyaviruses/Hantavirus"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/People and places/Geographical locations/Asia"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/People and places/Geographical locations/Europe"
    ],
    [
      "plos",
      "/People and places/Geographical locations/North America"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7211947710",
  "pdf_url": "https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045&type=printable",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-08",
  "publisher": "Public Library of Science",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dyw4x2vdzhkpf.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:56Z",
      "native_id": "10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045",
      "source": "plos",
      "url": "https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgph.0007045"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "plos:ecology",
      "subfield": "ecology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Increasing spatial scale of analysis weakens and can mask the dilution effect for hantaviruses",
  "title_text": "Increasing spatial scale of analysis weakens and can mask the dilution effect for hantaviruses",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:17:56Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/dyw4x2vdzhkpf",
  "venue": "PLOS Global Public Health",
  "versions": []
}