Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems.
Understanding why some human populations remain persistently poor remains a significant challenge for both the social and natural sciences. The extremely poor are generally reliant on their immediate natural resource base for subsistence and suffer high rates of mortality due to parasitic and infect...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Public Library of Science (PLoS)
2014-04-01
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| Series: | PLoS Biology |
| Online Access: | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3972083?pdf=render |
| _version_ | 1819131381829074944 |
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| author | Calistus N Ngonghala Mateusz M Pluciński Megan B Murray Paul E Farmer Christopher B Barrett Donald C Keenan Matthew H Bonds |
| author_facet | Calistus N Ngonghala Mateusz M Pluciński Megan B Murray Paul E Farmer Christopher B Barrett Donald C Keenan Matthew H Bonds |
| author_sort | Calistus N Ngonghala |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Understanding why some human populations remain persistently poor remains a significant challenge for both the social and natural sciences. The extremely poor are generally reliant on their immediate natural resource base for subsistence and suffer high rates of mortality due to parasitic and infectious diseases. Economists have developed a range of models to explain persistent poverty, often characterized as poverty traps, but these rarely account for complex biophysical processes. In this Essay, we argue that by coupling insights from ecology and economics, we can begin to model and understand the complex dynamics that underlie the generation and maintenance of poverty traps, which can then be used to inform analyses and possible intervention policies. To illustrate the utility of this approach, we present a simple coupled model of infectious diseases and economic growth, where poverty traps emerge from nonlinear relationships determined by the number of pathogens in the system. These nonlinearities are comparable to those often incorporated into poverty trap models in the economics literature, but, importantly, here the mechanism is anchored in core ecological principles. Coupled models of this sort could be usefully developed in many economically important biophysical systems--such as agriculture, fisheries, nutrition, and land use change--to serve as foundations for deeper explorations of how fundamental ecological processes influence structural poverty and economic development. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-22T09:14:36Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-e19be7a9c85a43f69d0bf759785dd93c |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1544-9173 1545-7885 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-22T09:14:36Z |
| publishDate | 2014-04-01 |
| publisher | Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | PLoS Biology |
| spelling | doaj.art-e19be7a9c85a43f69d0bf759785dd93c2022-12-21T18:31:21ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS Biology1544-91731545-78852014-04-01124e100182710.1371/journal.pbio.1001827Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems.Calistus N NgonghalaMateusz M PlucińskiMegan B MurrayPaul E FarmerChristopher B BarrettDonald C KeenanMatthew H BondsUnderstanding why some human populations remain persistently poor remains a significant challenge for both the social and natural sciences. The extremely poor are generally reliant on their immediate natural resource base for subsistence and suffer high rates of mortality due to parasitic and infectious diseases. Economists have developed a range of models to explain persistent poverty, often characterized as poverty traps, but these rarely account for complex biophysical processes. In this Essay, we argue that by coupling insights from ecology and economics, we can begin to model and understand the complex dynamics that underlie the generation and maintenance of poverty traps, which can then be used to inform analyses and possible intervention policies. To illustrate the utility of this approach, we present a simple coupled model of infectious diseases and economic growth, where poverty traps emerge from nonlinear relationships determined by the number of pathogens in the system. These nonlinearities are comparable to those often incorporated into poverty trap models in the economics literature, but, importantly, here the mechanism is anchored in core ecological principles. Coupled models of this sort could be usefully developed in many economically important biophysical systems--such as agriculture, fisheries, nutrition, and land use change--to serve as foundations for deeper explorations of how fundamental ecological processes influence structural poverty and economic development.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3972083?pdf=render |
| spellingShingle | Calistus N Ngonghala Mateusz M Pluciński Megan B Murray Paul E Farmer Christopher B Barrett Donald C Keenan Matthew H Bonds Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. PLoS Biology |
| title | Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. |
| title_full | Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. |
| title_fullStr | Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. |
| title_full_unstemmed | Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. |
| title_short | Poverty, disease, and the ecology of complex systems. |
| title_sort | poverty disease and the ecology of complex systems |
| url | http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC3972083?pdf=render |
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