We do however have examples of diseases that seem to be doing a decent job at wiping out the species. Look at Tasmanian Devil face cancer for example. It is likely that the primary reason we don’t see diseases wiping out a lot of species right now is that with all the human caused extinctions the ones being caused by disease are being lost in the noise.
DIseases are surely having a field day at the moment—due to humans stirring their ecosystems, and introducing unfamiliar pathogens to hosts with no resistance.
My point was that biologists don’t just depend on sources muddied by selection effects for their knowledge of this subject.
We do however have examples of diseases that seem to be doing a decent job at wiping out the species. Look at Tasmanian Devil face cancer for example. It is likely that the primary reason we don’t see diseases wiping out a lot of species right now is that with all the human caused extinctions the ones being caused by disease are being lost in the noise.
DIseases are surely having a field day at the moment—due to humans stirring their ecosystems, and introducing unfamiliar pathogens to hosts with no resistance.
My point was that biologists don’t just depend on sources muddied by selection effects for their knowledge of this subject.