Activity X – Coronavirus and Ecology

Emergence Magazine held an interview with David Quammen, the author of Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, to discuss his ideas about viruses and the origin of the current pandemic.

·       What am I being asked to believe or accept?

David Quammen explains in this short interview that COVID-19 probably came from a horseshoe bat that lived in a cave in Yunnan, where they discovered the virus in 2017. He goes on to explain that the “bat is captured, probably, live and put in a cage and taken to a wet market in the city of Wuhan, China” that is a thousand miles away from Yunnan (Quammen, par. 6). From there the bat infected another animal, the virus “got amplified in that animal, and then that animal was sold, was butchered, somehow infected maybe a few dozen people” (Quammen, par. 7). The virus might not have left the cave if humans were not disrupting wild ecosystems.

Quammen wants people to believe that the human population has exploded, and since the population has grown so much, we are consuming, destroying, and disrupting the habitats and ecosystems that these viruses live in. We have taken away their reservoir host, so we have become the host. Humans need to adapt, consume less, and destroy less so we will continue to survive and live in harmony with nature.

·       What evidence is available to support the claim?

David Quammen supports his claim about the negative effects of mass human population and consumption with the analogy of tent caterpillars. Tent caterpillars are moth larvae that form silk tents when they hatch from their egg. Some years they are not noticeable because their populations are low. However, if they have a couple good years in a row, meaning there has been a mild winters and the correct amount of humidity, most of the eggs the female lays will survive. Their population will skyrocket, “and you see these silk tents on the limbs and branches of all your trees, and the caterpillars are out there defoliating the trees” (Quammen, par 64). Then, almost like magic, the population crashes. Now we know that viral plagues cause these crashes. He explains, “They carry their own kinds of viruses at low endemic levels, but when their population explodes and they live at such high densities, then they pass the virus from one to another, and the virus kills them and explodes out of them and infects another caterpillar, and pretty soon the whole population has crashed and they disappear” (Quammen, par. 66). Human population and consumption continues to grow and disturb more ecosystems. When a new virus from an exotic ecosystem is introduced to a human, it will spread rapidly because the human population is so dense, like the tent caterpillar population after a good couple years. The human population needs to adapt and adjust our behavior so there is not a population crash like the tent caterpillar.

·       What alternative ways are there to interpret the evidence?

Some people might argue that the tent caterpillar population died off strictly because of starvation and not disease. When a population explodes, their resources are used faster and they run out faster. After all the food is gone and the caterpillars have become moths, the new caterpillars hatching from the eggs end up starving and die. They have to wait for their resources to come back for their population numbers to come back up.

·       What assumptions or biases came up when doing the above steps? (e.g., using intuition/emotion, authority, or personal experience rather than science)

I immediately believed what David Quammen was saying because I believe there are too many people on the planet. I also think that people are not being as environmentally conscious as they should be, and we are harming the planet more than helping it. I heard one person say that COVID-19 is the planet fighting back, and trying to control the human population because we are getting out of hand. There are so many of us, and we are taking over the entire planet. We have destroyed habitats and displaced millions of animals. They have had to find other places to live. It only makes sense that their viruses have had to find other places to live too. From my experience, people have been reckless, and this pandemic is our fault.

·       What additional evidence would help us evaluate Quammen’s points?

David Quammen wants people to understand that the amount of human consumption of the earths recourses is directly related to pandemics. The host sets up the question by saying, “in the last fifty years we’ve really seen an emergence of many, many more [zoonotic viruses] in a short amount of time” (EM, par. 39), and Quammen agrees with him. Then Quammen goes on to back this up by listing some diseases that have come out in the last fifty years. He says, “Mapucho in Bolivia 1962, coming out of rodents. Marburg in 1967 in monkeys that were shipped from Uganda to Marburg, Germany, for use in medical labs. Ebola emerging for the first time we know of in 1976. AIDS, HIV, getting recognized for the first time in 1981…On and on, and now here we are with COVID-19 in 2020” (Quammen, par. 40-43). However, he only directly links one viral case, Marburg in 1967, to some sort of human consumption and disruption of different environments. If he really wanted to hammer down the theory that “this emergence of so many viruses is directly in correspondence with the increase of disruption to many environments in terms of ramp and scale” (EM, par. 39), then he should have had facts on how each virus originated. He should have also listed the viruses that had emerged before consumer consumption increased to show the supposed sparsity. This would help him prove that we have had more viruses emerge because of increased human consumption and disruption.

·       What conclusions are most reasonable or likely?

Throughout the interview, Quammen laid out what he believes is the reason behind all of our pandemics. What he said makes a lot of sense, and I am inclined to believe he is correct. It is practically common sense that disturbing an environment will leave you vulnerable to the dangers of that environment. Isn’t that what the entire Alien movie saga is about?

At the end of the interview, David Quammen says “We should use [the COVID-19 pandemic] as an opportunity to demand from ourselves and demand from our leaders substantive change, real, drastic change in the way we live on this planet, while we still have time” (Quammen, par. 79). If people make more responsible consumer choices, stop the destruction of the wild environment, and stop wasting so much, we will be able to live in harmony with the planet. We are not the only species here. We need to stop acting like everything is ours to take.

·       What are the implications of what Quammen is telling us?

David Quammen is telling us that we, meaning all of humanity, need to change our ways. These pandemics are not caused solely by population growth. They are caused by the amount of destruction we have done, and continue to do to the environment around us, for our consumer goods. Quammen says, “The impact of humans is population multiplied by consumption” (Quammen, par. 61). If we do not stop the destruction and disruption of the world around us, we will continue to have pandimics.

·       How do Quammen’s points tie in with what we learned before? 

David Quammen’s theory that the human population is an outbreak population is backed up by other scientists and researchers. I studied human population for Activity 3.1 from the book Introduction to Environmental Science earlier in this semester. The book has a demographic transition model that shows the different stages of human population. Stage I has high birth and death rates with a low population. The people that live in stage one are in third world countries, and most of the time they do not have access to clean water, medicine, and have a limited food supply. This is when disease can take over, and that is why the population stays so small. Stage II has high birth rates, but the death rates have dropped, increasing the population size. Stage II happens in areas that are beginning to industrialize. At stage III, birth rates have dropped significantly, and death rates are starting to stabilize. Stage III areas have matured, and have access to medicine, clean water, and an abundance of food. The last stage, stage IV has low birth rates and low death rates. The population has stabilized and reached its peak. My blog on this subject is https://envr1301-abigailbiggs.blogspot.com/2020/02/activity-31-human-population.html.

·       What is your role in what Quammen is arguing?

Zoonotic viruses are everywhere, and they have been around for a long time. Everyone has been impacted by a zoonotic virus in some way throughout their life. However, right now, COVID-19 is running ramped. It has not infected me, but caused me to have to work and do school from home. I have not been negatively impacted as much as many others have. My role after this pandemic has ended is to do more research on what I am buying, and try to cut down on my consumer consumption. If more people start purchasing ethical products, and care about where they come from, we might be able to hinder new disease from emerging as quickly. If people start making enough noise, companies might listen and begin to make things that last, instead of throwing things away after one use. Maybe more companies will start making things out of recycled material. David Quammen says, “We can adjust our behavior. We can consume less. We can pass regulations. We can adapt to the situation” (Quammen, par. 74), and I want to help do that.

Resources:

Vaughan-Lee, E. (Host). (2020). Shaking the viral tree: An interview with David Quammen [Audio podcast with transcript]. Emergence Magazine. https://emergencemagazine.org/story/shaking-the-viral-tree/