Science and Inquiry discussion

I find this topic quite interesting. We live in days of conservation trend in biology. It seems that the aim of this is to save as many species as possible and it is often being disscussed that we should treat them all the same way, regardless how fluffy, pretty, famous or ugly they are. Decades ago, the predators such as wolves were considered beasts that should be eliminated and there were even bounties for killing them! Nowaday we protect many of them. Will something like that happen to parasites as well?
I don't expect us to protect Plasmodium falciparum, however parasites are a very important part of biosphere especially as population regulators and, as it seems, kind of an "anagenesis engine" (Red Queen hypothesis..).
Parasites are also much more predisposed to go extinct. They are often host specific which means that the parasite always goes extinct sooner then its host. Some of them have crazy life cycles- and even one of the hosts missing at the locality means a big trouble for the parasite.
Also, when people are trying to save the few last individuals of, f.e., some endangered mammal species, they usually don't realize that the parasites on these individuals might also be the last ones- and because they try to make the mammals as healthy as possible, they just heal them from all of their parasites. How many lice have become extinct this way? Paradoxical, this way we are exterminating species for purpose of biodiversity conservation.
You have probably heard that there are more parasitic species than the free living ones. Yet there is only one parasitic species on the IUCN Red List (Haematopinus oliveri).
Donald A. Windsor wrote in 1990: „Equal rights for parasites!“
What do you think about this dilemma? Should at least the less harmful parasites be protected? Will they be once?

There is probably no such thing as superfluous life, except for perhaps products such as advanced life forms that can prolong their lack of diversity.

I suspect everything is needed except possibly afore mentioned super beings.

There is a difference between keeping something at bay and attempting to exterminate it.

Parasites, indeed any life forms that do look not familiar or "cute" to us are labeled negatively such as ugly, or extreme, their usefulness is questioned as they don't seem to hold respectable jobs in the animal kingdom, according to our myopic standards.

The real question is can the non parasitic world survive without the parasitic world. The unscientific answer is absolutely.

We know about the "bad" parasites, you easily see the ill effects but is it logical to think that there are no "good" parasites simply because they do not fit into our totally artificial set of ethics and if something good where to happen is not the typical human behavior to claim responsibility where none is deserved?

If the parasites are not occupying their niches what else will move in?

Was the spectacular rise of multicellular life created by multiple life forms hiding out in other larger life forms?

What was the joke, was it people or parasites that became so adapted to life in the big city hosts that they forgot how to survive in the real world where one has to create their own shelter, nutrients, energy sources, personal protection, etc.?

Almost certainly, benefitial organisms, such as gut fauna, started out at some point in the past as parasites. Today's cholera could be tomorrow's (OK, millions of years from now) comensals.

Robbower: Also mitochondria.. those were quite benefitial parasites as well :D

Nice analogy, Robert.

Speaking about usefulness and anthropocentrism, for a last few months I've been curious about how parasites can be helpful to us. A few parasitologists published some papers about their usefulness in constructing host phylogenies, it cought my attention so I continued searching and here's the list of what I found:

1) Reconstructing evolutionary and population history of the hosts (because the parasites are so tightly connected to the hosts, their histories are analogical + they carry some benefits such as much more rapid molecular evolution or, sometimes, much slower morphological evolution)
2) In some special cases we can even find out something about us. We learned when our ancestors started wearing clothes thanks to lice evolutionary history.
3) Parasites can help a lot in archeology. Helminth eggs are super-resistant and can be found in archeological sites and determined even today. From these we can learn a lot about what (and how) those people used to eat, what animals they bred, what was the hygienic situation, where they moved for trade etc.!
4) Then there's of course biological control. The plantations of manioc were saved from its parasites by the parasites of these parasites. It is very debatable wheter this is a good thing, however in this specific situation it worked well and saved many lives.
5) Parasitic wasps are due to their amazing olfactory sense trained to detect drugs, dead bodies, explosives or even cancer. (in the first experiment they were trained to detect vanilla and chocolate scent! :D)
6) Probably the biggest argument for people is the use of parasites in medicine. It seems they might help a lot when fighting autoimmune diseases.

If you know about anything else, let me know please, I will be very grateful :)

Robert wrote: "There is probably no such thing as superfluous life, except for perhaps products such as advanced life forms that can prolong their lack of diversity.

I suspect everything is needed except possibl..."
Wow! All this is certainly food for thought. As a wannabee hermit living back in the woods with 3 dogs sleeping not only in bed but under the covers, I engage in a continual battle with fleas, never once considering the ecological havoc that might be raised if I were successful at totally eliminating the little bastards! (Rest easy...they are holding their own to say the least.)
I has occurred to me, though, that people have already evolved to become the biggest parasites on the planet, as you pointed out in your comment about the cities...

"advanced life forms that can prolong their lack of diversity"

It was suppose to refer to people but the horseshoe crab comes to mind which certainly does not belong in that category.

I guess it should be "advanced life forms that can artificially prolong their lack of diversity".

I guess the bottom line is that any life form that gets passed along or shared is some sort of messenger that is relaying or sharing information that provides feedback for the operation of the entire world wide genetic structure.

There might be something natural one could eat that would make your skin less tempting for the fleas.

They don't really like me much. The dogs and husband are sweeter. I looked it up....garlic and brewers yeast. So now I will be encouraging the evolution of fleas with an appetite for ( or at least tolerance of) brewers yeast and garlic. Little gourmet fleas.
Who eats fleas? Do fleas have a particular natural predator? Do I want them in my house? What role do fleas play in the food chain? Or are they termini like us? Is termini a word?
I need to go get a job or something.

I believe the role of fleas is rather being a part of life cycle of other parasites (the dog tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum, uses flea as the intermediate host), regulation of wildlife populations, and, as every parasite, they play role in sexual selection (the amount of parasites on an animal shows its fintess and immunity so the females can choose "the right one" with not so many fleas or lice :)). These things apply to any parasite, though.
I don't think there's any animal that eats specifically fleas. They might be eaten by some insect eaters like spiders when they're away from the host body, but that's rather rare. Of course fleas have their own parasites- especially microorganisms- that are dependent on them. And, as I mentioned, the dog tapeworm needs fleas as well. So the role of fleas in the "circle of life" is rather discreet, but.. it is still there :)

Defining the worth of a parasite may be challenging in the grand scheme of things. Even if parasites make an individual sick, it may still be good for a species over the long term in ways we don't currently understand.

Phlebotomus wrote: "I believe the role of fleas is rather being a part of life cycle of other parasites (the dog tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum, uses flea as the intermediate host), regulation of wildlife populations, a..."

That's right, I do recall hearing something of the link between tapeworms and fleas. Having little sympathy for tapeworms either, I wormed the dogs and introduced garlic into their diets. Need to find out how to introduce the fleas to the microorganisms that eat them. See how they like it.
House is full of spiders but they have enough to do what with the flies, mosquitoes and these infernal weevils who infest flour, oatmeal etc. We seem to be bug magnets.

Robert wrote: "...Parasites, indeed any life forms that do look not familiar or "cute" to us are labeled negatively such as ugly, or extreme, their usefulness is questioned as they don't seem to hold respectable jobs in the animal kingdom, according to our myopic standards. ..."

One of the best books I read this year was Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog.

Like most of us today in the US, he KNEW cock fighting was inherently cruel & evil. Then he wound up following a truck full of roaster chickens. His conclusion is that we're all hypocrites in the way we draw the lines between species. The journey to that conclusion is fantastic. Very readable & interesting.

I liked it so much that after listening to it as an audio book, I bought the hardback to look more at some of his figures & conclusions. My 5 star review is here:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Nancy wrote: "...I engage in a continual battle with fleas, never once considering the ecological havoc that might be raised if I were successful at totally eliminating the little bastards! (Rest easy...they are holding their own to say the least.)..."

Look for nematodes. They're microscopic beasties that think flea eggs are juicy cups. We've always had a lot of dogs & rarely had a problem with fleas, but one year everyone had a huge problem. I bought some & scattered them not just in the yard, but in the house on the carpets under the back corner of the couch & other places that rarely get vacuumed. While others kept having flea problems, we never did again at that house. Never. No pesticides or anything, either.

My cousin had a similar problem & also fixed it with nematodes. She bought them on Amazon, but had to ship them to her mother's house in Oregon since she lives in California.

thanks Jim. I will look for them. A neighbor gave me one of those pills you can only get from the vet and it worked like a miracle. But I will try to find some nemotodes...the fleas are awful around here when the weather gets warm.
The Herzog book is on my list. Since reading Omnivore's Dilemma I have drastically cut meat consumption and am getting my eggs from my own happy chickens. Have considered getting goats for meat.

I think we use pills now at this house. It's something new that sterilizes them or something. I don't know. Doc Marg (my wife) takes care of the pharmacy. I do recall we had one dog that we couldn't use one sort of pesticide based flea killer on or she'd have a seizure.

Raising goats for meat is pretty big around here. My neighbor has close to 200 Boer's. We have a couple of Kinder does, but I've never bred them. Marg would like to eat Buttercup & Rosie on a regular basis, but if we had kids I think we'd soon be overrun with goats. If there is anything cuter than a kid, it's a foal & we've been overrun with them before, too. Initially a money making scheme, she wound up practically giving them away to make sure they got the perfect home. I was raised on a working farm so am far better equipped than she is to handle raising animals for slaughter.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals looks really interesting, but my library doesn't have it as an audio book & it's pricey. Thanks, though. I've put it on my wish list. Maybe Santa will be nice.

don't eat Buttercup and Rose. You don't eat anyone you name.
I would turn them into a fenced 10 acre parcel of woods and not make pets of them, else I would not eat them. as a young lady I had a sad experience with some pigs I had made friends of. One day I would like a milk goat but am not sure I am ready for that commitment right now.
Horses are wonderful but seems like you have to be a slick talker to make money selling them. Mine race and make a little money if I don't count my time.
try half.com for books. often the books are cheaper than the shipping! Not as many audio books but they do have some.

It isn't the naming of an animal that makes slaughter difficult. It is anthropomorphizing the animal that does it. Naming is merely one step in the process.

When I was a kid, my mother dated a guy who grew up on a hog farm. He named the shoats, and hand fed them apples through the fence rails. Then, when the time came, he would call them into the slaughtering pen by name. Then he would hold out an apple. When the pig stretched out his neck for the apple, my mother's boyfriend would slit the pigs throat. Quick, efficient and guilt free.

J. wrote: "It isn't the naming of an animal that makes slaughter difficult. It is anthropomorphizing the animal that does it. Naming is merely one step in the process...."

Actually, that sometimes helped. We were going to keep Sara to replace her mother, Becky, but she turned out to be such a pain that we ate her instead. Steaks & burgers were her finest hour.

Nancy, I'll check & see what they have. 10 acres can handle a lot of goats. Ours are in a tiny area most of the time & only get out a few hours a day. They're still as fat as they are wide. Still, they jump to the top of their house, a 3' jump, & they're only 2' at the shoulder.

We had a milk goat, Heidi, when I was a kid. Spring sucked because she loved to eat the wild onion/garlic & that flavored the milk something fierce. Awful. That's how I learned to milk. That's another reason I don't want to breed ours. I get up at 4:30am already. I don't want to get up 30 minutes earlier to milk them, too.

my first pig experience was when they brought Alice home. Just a sweet little thing and I fed her apples by hand. She walked on a leash and played with the dog. then they added Alvin, Albert and Alfred. I named them after my then_husband Allen. The day those pigs were slaughtered was a sad sad day for me. When we wrapped the meat I would mark the packages, "this is Alice's shoulder" and "you are eating Alice!" Oddly this did not seem to deter anyone else from eating her. The next year we had 10 nameless pigs and I was not in charge of feeding them. Things went more smoothly after that.

Was Sara a cow Jim? I suppose if they are really a pain you did not mind eating them. when a rooster gets mean, I don't mind. It is when you get to be buddies that it's a problem.

4:30 is too early. why can't they be milked at a more civilized hour?

Yes, Sara was a mostly Angus heifer. I think she was 1/8th Jersey. Her mother, Becky, was 1/4 Jersey, I believe & gave us plenty of milk. Sara was a total pain. She was constantly refusing to come in to be fed & I'd spend an hour chasing her around the field. Half the time, she'd drag her heels until we got to the top of the hill above the barn & then charge down it as fast as she could. I'd trip & get dragged for a while. She was also sneaky about kicking, but she butted Mom badly one time & that was all she wrote. Burger time.

4:30 is when I get up to go to work so I have quality time with my servers before the rest of the company gets in. I like going in early so I can leave early. I get home by 3:30pm & have time to get a lot done around the farm.

Angus, well she was kinda meant for meat anyway. Theoretically I don't mind eating someone if they are allowed a happy life beforehand.

Depends. In order to protect the parasite you would probably be actually protecting the host. If the parasite is endangered why is it endangered? Is it due to "man made" reason? Is the host evolving to defend itself against it? Who is the host?

All of those questions are important.

For instance- if it's found in common species(let's say a field mouse) there's probably a good chance it's not endangered and this shouldn't be protected. If it's in something that has low population numbers that Then leads to *why* that species has low population numbers and if the host actually needs protection or not.c


If the host is evolving to defend itself, I would say no.

If the host is something like a cow and it's becoming endangered due to better hygiene or whatever, how do you plan on protecting it? I don't think ranchers or dairy farmers would appreciate someone telling them their cattle need to have a parasite.

Then there's the logistical nightmare of actually trying to get population counts...

This is how I see it as a public health worker: An ecosystem is technically based on each animal taking and giving something back to the environment. Parasites, as the name says, harms a host. They don't give anything back to the ecosystem.

Ecologically, parasites are as important as predators.
they co-evolve with their hosts and control their populations, they kill weak individuals or make them more exposed to predators who eliminate them (natural selection), they play a very important role in sexual selection (females choose healthy males, and a healthy look can be achieved only if an individual can resist its parasites). They don't give anything to the single individual, but their role in ecological systems is relevant as well as other species'.

Parasites become problems when natural systems become altered. This can be natural or not natural. Humans have caused a lot of alterations of natural systems: domesticated species with their own parasites were spred all over the world, infecting and being infected by wild species. Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation have put a lot of species into contact with new parasites, or weakened their immunity as their habitats were poorer.

When a parasite infects a new host, this host is likely without defence. And this is a quite big conservation problem, as in most cases humans are accountable.

Courtney wrote: "Depends. In order to protect the parasite you would probably be actually protecting the host.

Ι think u might be missing the point here, new findings from Biologists would point out, to the posistion, that parasites, are 'using' us in order to replicate and perpetuate their cycle, ie it's not clear, from a certain point which one, would be considered a paracite -

I don't think ranchers or dairy farmers would appreciate someone telling them their cattle need to have a parasite."

Already WHO is aderssing it's agencies on sub saharan Africa to 'ease up' on their health sanitisation protocols, if I got it right, there is a whole shift in attitudes

My opiniion is gaining levity mostly from Marlene Zuk's book
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8...



I agree with Kikosyan 'Parasites become problems when natural systems become altered. This can be natural or not natural. Humans have caused a lot of alterations of natural systems: domesticated species with their own parasites were spred all over the world, infecting and being infected by wild species. Habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation have put a lot of species into contact with new parasites, or weakened their immunity as their habitats were poorer.Parasites become problems when natural systems become altered.

And let us not forget the main focus of this thread

Donald A. Windsor wrote in 1990: „Equal rights for parasites!“
What do you think about this dilemma? Should at least the less harmful parasites be protected? Will they be once?

you're right. my opinion is implicit in the first paragraph of my intervention but maybe too implicit :)

the wide goal of conservation is to preserve ecosystems in their whole structure and processes, not only single charismatic species. so yes, parasites are part of these processes. in altered systems they are a threat. so they should be maintened in their natural context and managed in altered context.

Since I am rather new , to 'these parts' if I may ask from ya, a gnrl Qeustion

Would U say , that with our new 'restrained ecosystems' while we maybe leaving in an apprent luxurious and care-free lifestyle, ain't it more likely , that new parasites are likely to be coevolving in these conditions, along with us? [ that's what you implyed with habitat degradation I presume]

Biodiversity, is quite eseeential, and would probably give rise to new life forms, or perhaps leaving us with less 'downgrades' to begin with [ie medical issues that arise mainly due to our loss of our natural lifestyel and aleviation of older threats in our vday life]

Immunology, intersts me greatly btw, but I am not accustomed/have ran acros actually with any of these terms associated with 'habitat' and renovated solutions, specifically targetting the problem at hand

If you think in evolutionary scale, ecosystems always change and, even in a very altered ecosystem, parasites will co-evolve with new hosts and in some millienniums (?) centuries (?) millions of years (?) there will be another functional status. The problem is when this change is not natural, because it is caused by humans in short time and without co-evolution. In this case I think humans are responsible of their actions and should manage the threats they created, and try to preserve and restore ecological processes and thus biodiversity.

about "those terms" associated with habitat:
Habitat degradation is that process that makes habitat types poorer, polluted, invaded by alien species and so on. Of course in a degradated habitat native species find themselves in worse conditions, they are likely to find less resources (food, water, cover) and so they become weaker and parasites can overwhelm them. Furthermore, they can meet new parasites, because the new conditions bring new species.
Habitat loss is when that type of habitat is definitively lost (wow, that's a great explanation!)
Habitat fragmentation is when a continuous habitat type is divided into smaller and smaller fragments, isolating population from each others and worsening the conditions inside each fragment.

from what I've read so far [ my first 'out of the blue' assesement' I would point out not to to the loss of habitat {since it can be partly reproduced, or in a finite number of case, species reintroduced eventually to their natural enviromental zone's]

Habitat frangemntation

is what we are looking at actually, and I ain't talkng about encircled natural habitats, where a few species might coevolve, or conger to a mutually benefecial regime, my hypothesis isthat is more likely to find 'vestiges' within the bounds of the city limits, where bacteria, parasites would indeed thrive [ even if it is for a limited amount of time] and on instant occasions merge with the populance, wither that of people, or domesitcated animal {who are more likely to be exposed in potential threats , thus manifesting another type of ecosystem alltogether

I am not the one, to say, what various of studies, have had to say about all this, but I presume, that U have thought these matters thoroughly, and already have a first hand assesment on this. if that^s the case, then surely, that would indeed be a place, for

equal rights, give rise, to specific parasites?

or is this a new ground we tread upon altogether. Could U adress any simulation models, where that theme has been 'synchronised' perhaps?

Perhaps I am out of my depth here, simply thikging on ESS strategies, as they were 'put forward' from Kaufmann's famous book

Stuart Kauffman, of the Santa Fe Institute, who argues that the universe gives us "order for free." Kauffman has spent decades on origin-of-life research, aiming to show that the transition from chemistry to metabolism is as inevitable as a ball rolling down a slope. Molecules on the early earth, he suggests, inevitably began to catalyze themselves in self-sustaining reactions ("autocatalytic networks"), converting energy and raw materials into increasingly complex structures that eventually crossed the boundary between nonliving and living. Nagel mentions his work once, briefly, in a footnote.

it was quite usefull, that I scanned this, on my my FB page, from this review.. hope it helps the group to comprehend, what I was trying to say above
..
http://chronicle.com/article/Where-Th...

For animals used for food, their point of view would have humans be the worst parasite they have to contend with.

Robert wrote: "For animals used for food, their point of view would have humans be the worst parasite they have to contend with."

If it weren't for us bloodthirsty bipedal apes, chickens would still be limited to the jungles of southeastern asia. Because they are tastey and bite-sized we have spread them to every corner of our world.

We have done similarly with many other plants and animals, for much the same reasons. While our relationship to livestock is curious, I would not characterize it as parasitic. In as much as we feed each other, it might be seen as symbiotic.

A parasite is an organism that is dependent upon a host and does not provide anything beneficial to the host, rather is detrimental to its health. They do not "right away" kill their host otherwise they are considered a predator.


To answer the original question: yes and no. I personally think *everything* has intrinsic value. so yes in the aspect. No because it's a logistical nightmare and I think the money spent towards protecting a parasite could probably be better spent on other species/ecosystems. There is only so much money towards conservation and a large chunk of it goes towards protecting species that is economically important (e.g salmon populations in Oregon). I wouldn't want the remainder of the money going to an organism.

Sources: conservation biology by Kareiva/conservation biology taught by Lillian wolfenbarger/ ecology taught by Timothy Dickson.

I wouldn't want the remainder of that money going to a parasite** sorry missed that.

Static definitions look good on paper but in the world of dirt not everything is at it seems.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25...

Treatment with egg antigens of Schistosoma mansoni ameliorates experimental colitis in mice through a colonic T-cell-dependent mechanism.

CONCLUSIONS:
Our results demonstrated that the administration of SmSEA reduces the severity of colitis in the adoptive transfer mouse model characterized by an increased Th2 response and a suppressed Th17 response in the colon.

Schistosoma mansoni is a significant parasite of humans, a trematode that is one of the major agents of the disease schistosomiasis which is one type of helminthiasis, a neglected tropical disease.

While the National Institutes of Health is studying mice, people are actually taking this stuff.

As for amplifying one species of a food chain, chickens, without boosting the populations of everything above and below them and connected to them is probably not a great idea. Concentrating them into small areas probably isn't too good either for the natural environment you are intricately connected to. Then magnify this situation by adding even more limited edition specie amplifications and you might begin to sense some kind of problem. If you are solely profit motivated you probably won't see anything out of place at all.

It's gets better. 90 percent of the living cells in our our bodies are not us. No man is an island is literally true. The 90 percent that isn't you gets genetically updated the same way the stuff in the outside world gets updated. As long as the changes we make to the global microbiome are beneficial, then we shouldn't mind these same changes being implemented to our human microbiomes.

Because we have moved ordinary dirt worms around the country in vast numbers, happily transporting them by car, boat, plane, and foot they are now contributing to the destruction of forest floor ecologies. When I first heard about this, I thought it was absolutely false.

In plain English, this was back in 2007:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st...

2009:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/art...

2015:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/...

I think that potentially most of living forms have an utilitarian value in scientific research, both present and future. The "option value" (and the scientific one) is in fact one of the many good reasons to take the biodiversity in account. Actually a lot of parasites are actually "conserved" in labs.
There is a story about a research team that was going to destroy a virus strain that was no more useful. Some people said that was a loss of biodiversity.

About chickens stocked in millions in a single facility: intensive farmers (do you call them farmers? I actually don't see those buildings as "farms", i don't know if there is a more suitable English term) also spend a lot of money in antibiotics and other medicines to preserve their stocks from parasites. And this is mostly caused by altered balance in the relationship between host and their parasites. It is a really perverse system.

"@ Robert : In plain English, I can't access the data, constructed on ABC analysis, in the studies of Alberta forest


[In total, the population for this worm species is expected to expand to cover 39 percent of the boreal forest floor in northeastern Alberta by 2056.]

taken fom yr primary link
So in short, I am not sure, if I should take this as an overstretched estimate, from a scientific Editor in Chief, in order to get the attention of his readers, or a non biased result, collected acutely from 3 different sources...

Well, when it is happening in your own backyard and the soil looks like it has been over tilled and all you got is worms munching on the dead leaf clutter which never gets a chance to break down into a multi layered soil you form a new set of ideas about what is happening. If I hadn't seen it happening I would never have believed it. In fact, I didn't believe it could possibly be true until I did see it in my own backyard.

The worm casings of the jumping worms are round hard balls that don't fall apart creating dirt, they stay hard and dry, like clay BBs. They form a soil that has a high drainage factor and low nutrition. Seedlings that start out in this soil will grow until the first dry spell, which only needs to be a few days, at which point the seedlings' shallow roots will dry up, the seedlings then die. Effectively preventing new growth. Older growth with deep roots will grow slow because the nutrition value of the worm dirt is low but their roots don't dry out. So everything looks okay.

Try goggling "earthworms damaging state forests", you'll find a lot more than three sources. The funny part is this has been going on for years. I didn't notice it until 2 years ago when I saw the crazy worms first hand and was curious about worms that lived above ground away from dirt.

It is very difficult to get rid of the worms without getting rid of everything else. In the states the worms have been thoroughly distributed the same way the human population is distributed. In Canada the human population is small compared to the total area so it would take longer to show up.

Because I live near wetlands I don't see the problems with the salamanders. In fact every year we have a very robust salamander population. In terms of amphibians and reptiles that is all we really have anymore.