Note
Emerging and resurging diseases affect both plants and animals worldwide. Novel zoonotic
diseases usually cause concern because of their potential impacts on human health, but other
diseases that can cause significant morbidity or mortality are also of concern because of their potential
conservation importance. They can be especially devastating to endangered specieswhere population
levels are critically low (Harwood and Hall, 1990). For the purposes of this chapter,
emerging diseases are defined as those diseases that have not been identified previously, or are
considered a novel threat to the currently afflicted species (Wilson, 1999), and the chapter
concentrates on diseases that have emerged in the past decade.