Zoonotic pathogens exist within a complex environment that involves many host and other pathogen species. The diversity of host species with low competence for transmitting a given pathogen can reduce the intensity of pathogen transmission, leading to a prophylactic "dilution effect". However, the generality of this effect in wildlife disease systems is unclear, especially because each pathogen can interact with many others across a wide range of host species. Here, we use different theoretical frameworks to examine (i) the expected generality of the dilution effect for vector-borne zoonoses by removing all the assumptions generally involved in dilution effect theory and (ii) how pathogen community can structured when only one host species is present. We finally discuss the different possibilities to combine these two kind of models, in order to identify what is missing to understand if conservation biology can be used as a potential public health tool.