A third of parasite species could vanish
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
A few more of those things vanishing is fine by me. Maybe they could DNA sequence them first.
The article presents this as some weird thing due to it being a species not normal for humans. My college biology professor said that where they end up in the body has to do with how you get exposed. If you are exposed through the usual route, they end up in the usual places. If you get exposed some other way, she told us it can be worse, they can end up in places like the brain.
I don't know how to google a citation backing that up (I tried). But I remember my professor specifically mentioning they can end up in the brain.
The adult tapeworm leeches nutrients from the intestine and lays tons of eggs, which go into the feces. These eggs then contaminate the environment and end up being eaten by herbivores. The eggs hatch inside their stomach and the larva embed themselves in the meat of the herbivore (and can even get in the brain). Finally, when the predator consumes uncooked meat contaminated with tapeworm larva, these larva further develop into adult tapeworms.
Each species of tapeworm is tuned to a specific species of herbivore. Cow tapeworm eggs often go right past us because they expect a tougher stomach than ours but pig tapeworm eggs can get confused because our stomach is similar to a pig's. Their larva can then embed into our meat, which is terrible for us but a dead end for the tapeworm (because we have no natural predators ourselves)
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To protect against intestinal tapeworms only eat well cooked meat. (For raw meats like sushi, deep freezing is also an option if done right)
Preventing tapeworm cysts is more about sanitation. Have clean water for drinking and irrigation and ensure that fruits and veggies are well cleaned. Good personal hygiene helps, in case you are already infected with an adult tapeworm (and therefore at risk of autoinfection).
As far as I am concerned, they make huge territories in the north virtually unlivable (you could still live there but you no longer want to). That's even before malaria comes into account.
This leads to a proposition to a Realm of Fungi. So you wanted to eat our crops, but I have an interesting replacement for ya...
No you don't! You get used to limiting your exposure to the nature, which is hardly desirable. Considering that people actually get to enjoy nature in less wet / more sunny regions.
Ditch black flies too, surely.
I think it more likely to signal said disaster, than be a cause. You can point to almost any massive loss of biodiversity and rightly say that it's a bad sign, and maybe bad in and of itself. That sort of ignores the problem, while diluting it.