McCallum Hamish
School of Zoology, The University of Tasmania, Private Bag 5, Hobart 7000, Australia.
Trends Ecol Evol. 2008 Nov;23(11):631-7. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2008.07.001. Epub 2008 Aug 19.
Tasmanian devil facial tumour disease is an infectious cancer that threatens the largest surviving marsupial carnivore with extinction. After emerging in 1996, it has spread across most of the range of the species, leading to a population decline of more than 60%. This bizarre disease, in which the cancer cells themselves are the infective agent, illustrates some important general principles about disease and conservation biology, including the threat posed by loss of genetic diversity and the potential of pathogens with frequency-dependent transmission to cause extinction.
袋獾面部肿瘤病是一种传染性癌症，它威胁着现存最大的有袋类食肉动物，使其面临灭绝的危险。自1996年出现以来，它已蔓延到该物种大部分分布区域，导致其数量下降超过60%。这种奇特的疾病中，癌细胞本身就是感染源，它阐释了一些关于疾病和保护生物学的重要普遍原则，包括遗传多样性丧失所带来的威胁以及频率依赖传播的病原体导致灭绝的可能性。
