Science Memes

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👁👄👁 (lemmy.world)

submitted 21 hours ago by MataVatnik to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 7 hours ago (3 children)

If it kills the host, it's not a very successful parasite, or it's a parasitoid as only one other commenter has picked up. It's not in parasites' interest to kill their hosts, it usually happens when they infect a non-preferred host and the system responds differently, like the pork tapeworm Taenia solium which doesn't kill pigs but can be lethal in humans.

[–] Agent641 7 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

A superior parasite would keep the host alive for hundreds of years past it's normal lifespan, while ensuring that nothing of the host survives.

[–] Bytemeister 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Nope. Evolution doesn't really work like that. A 'successful' organism simply needs to have offspring capable of producing more offspring. In the case of a parasite, it just needs to keep the host alive long enough to infect another host. Anything more than that and you start running into quality vs quantity issues. A longer living, self limiting parasite isn't going to reproduce as fast (as size longevity goes up, reproductive rates generally go down)

A fast acting, highly transmissible parasite is generally going to outcompete slower parasites.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

You’re not actually wrong. The Goa'uld were indeed far too slow moving, and it was their ultimate weakness, they weren’t able to keep up with the pace of change around them, even despite a lack of competition in their evolutionary niche.

Or possibly because of a lack of competition. Another object lesson in the dangers from having a lack of biodiversity in our ecosystem.

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