Arctic animals are battling more diseases in recent decades. Here’s why

illuminem summarizes for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on The Washington Post or enjoy below:

🗞️ Driving the news: Arctic animals, including polar bears, are facing increased exposure to novel pathogens due to rapid environmental changes
• As the Arctic warms four times faster than the global average, diseases like bird flu and phocine distemper have emerged, impacting wildlife across the region
• Scientists have found that pathogens once rare in the Arctic are now more common, stressing already vulnerable species

🔭 The context: The Arctic’s shrinking sea ice and warming temperatures have disrupted natural barriers, allowing pathogens to spread more easily
• For example, thinning ice forced polar bears to spend more time on land, where they encounter diseases from other animals
• Melting permafrost is also releasing dormant pathogens, as seen in Siberia’s 2016 anthrax outbreak

🌍 Why it matters for the planet: The health of Arctic wildlife is a crucial indicator of broader ecosystem changes driven by climate change
• Increased disease transmission in these sensitive environments may foreshadow similar trends globally, threatening biodiversity and potentially affecting human health

⏭️ What's next: Researchers are increasing surveillance to better understand pathogen spread and mitigate potential risks
• Future studies may focus on how changing prey populations affect predator exposure to diseases and the potential for pathogen transmission to humans

💬 One quote: “The polar bears are a good indicator for what’s happening in the ecosystem” - Karyn Rode, a research wildlife biologist. “We know that pathogens’ transmission pathways are changing, including in the Arctic”

📈 One stat: Antibodies for the pathogen Neospora caninum were found in 65.1% of recent polar bear samples, a dramatic increase from 13.7% in the 1980s and 1990s

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