Anthropogenic land-use change is an important driver of global biodiversity loss and threatens public health through biological interactions. Understanding these landscape–ecological effects at local scales will help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by balancing urbanization, biodiversity and the spread of infectious diseases. Here, we address this knowledge gap by analysing a 43-year-long monthly dataset (1980–2022) of synanthropic rodents in Central China during intensive land-use change. We observed a notable increase in the mean patch size, coinciding with a substantial change in rodent community composition and a marked decline in rodent diversity; eight of the nine local rodent species experienced near-extirpation. Our analysis reveals that these irregular species replacements can be attributed to the effect of land consolidation on species competition among rodents, favouring striped field mice, a critical reservoir host of Hantaan virus (HTNV). Consequently, land consolidation has facilitated the proliferation of striped field mice and increased the prevalence of HTNV among them. This study highlights the importance of considering both direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic activities in the management of biodiversity and public health.

人为土地利用变化是全球生物多样性丧失的重要驱动因素，并通过生物相互作用威胁公众健康。了解当地尺度的这些景观-生态影响将有助于通过平衡城市化、生物多样性和传染病的传播来实现联合国可持续发展目标。在这里，我们通过分析长达43年的月度数据集（1980-2022）来解决这一知识差距，该数据集是华中地区在密集土地利用变化期间的同觉啮齿类动物。我们观察到平均斑块大小的显着增加，这与啮齿动物群落组成的重大变化和啮齿动物多样性的显着下降相吻合;9 种当地啮齿动物中有 8 种濒临灭绝。我们的分析表明，这些不规则的物种替换可归因于土地整理对啮齿动物之间物种竞争的影响，有利于条纹田鼠，这是汉坦病毒 （HTNV） 的关键宿主。因此，土地整理促进了条纹田鼠的增殖，并增加了其中 HTNV 的患病率。本研究强调了考虑人为活动对生物多样性和公共卫生管理的直接和间接影响的重要性。