Talk:Parasitism/Archive 1

Archive 1

Humans?

Isn't humans parasites on the host Earth?

Parasite v. Disease

I've been editing parasite articles a lot over the past few days and have noticed that there seems to be a re-occurring debate. Should parasitic diseases be the same article as the organism that causes them? Should malaria and plasmodium be the same article? Parasites obviously are important simply for being alive, but they also impact organisms, and this might be what makes them significant to the average reader. However, how much are we willing to repeat ourselves? Plcoffey (talk) 04:28, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

It would be cool to have a Guinea Worm article

who visit this site that know much more about it than I do... Clay

see Dracunculiasis Plcoffey (talk) 04:29, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Parasites

Could be good to put in a description of the different prasitic/host adaptations that have evolved to deal with immune responses/parasitic infection respectively.

Parasitic Mushrooms

I notice only one kind of parasitic fungus is mentioned here, I was hoping to find a little information on either the 'caterpillar mushroom' which grows on burrowing larvae, or a surely similar mushroom I've heard of which grows when an ant inhales its spores, draining its nutrients until the ant dies with two big mushrooms growing out of its back. These were surely the influence for the pokémon Paras and I was hoping to add said connection to the articles involved.

It seems wierd to me that this quote is even included:

"Fungi are not discussed in textbooks of medical parasitology even though they are eukaryotic. They are saprophytes."

The Tibetan vegetable caterpillar[[1]] is now a well known parasite thanks to its role in funding the Nepalese communist unrest, and an ant-fungus was featured in a David Attenborough doc, I think Life In The Undergrowth. Surely these must be a more widely considered class of parasites now, perhaps a mention of why they have been relatively neglected or disregarded by text books in the past would be more informative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.239 (talk) 13:52, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Are parasites useful at all?

If a major species of parasites, like lice, became extinct, would it have negative consequences to the environment or any ecosystem or species relation at all?

Eje211 00:24, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

From The Amazing Ichneumon by Connie Hjelmeng-Johnson:

All parasites are not bad. Ichneumon wasps are economically and environmentally important because their larvae feed on and destroy many insects injurious to humans and plants, especially to food crops. Ichneumons are important in the control of clinch bugs, boll weevils, codling moths and asparagus beetles, just to name a few. The value of parasitic ichneumon wasps in the control of agricultural pests is incalculable. They are extremely helpful to the environmental in general, and farmers in particular.

  — Chris Capoccia ^T⁄_C July 8, 2005 23:44 (UTC)

Parasites are useless... just like humans and other free-living groups. From a zoological perspective, the question of utility isn't very relevant. However, considering ecosystems as whole, some trematodes have been shown to facilite feeding by animals that are important to us (like egrets, which are more likely to be able catch killifish if these are parasitized than otherwise; these trematodes cause little (or unknown) pathology to egrets, so on balance they seem to benefit the pretty birds we like).

'Usefulness' may be an innapropriate term, but as I understand there is a general trend with parasites. Over time, biotrophic parasites apparently tend to become symbiotes, as benefiting their host will then benefit the parasites health and profusion. This is seen strongly among orchids, where sometimes 7 or more symbiotic organisms are neccessary for them to grow and pollinate, especially where they are adapted to low nutrient environments.

A more neutral measure than 'negative' would be, would loss of a class of parasites decrease biological diversity? And of course, by definition it would. In addition to the parasites role in diverse biology, they are thought to have a role in preventing single-species dominance, overconsumption of resources and monocultural environments. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.88.243.239 (talk) 14:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Slight reorganization

Some of the parasites listed in the Animals section are actualy protozoa, which are properly Protists (I believe). Historically, there has been different categorizations, and of course many of our classifications, even of separate kingdoms, are pretty arbitrary. But I'm creating a new set of bullets for the protozoa.

Nabarry 23:28, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The sentence "However, some definitions of symbiosis exclude parasitism, since certain types of DNA, such as transposable elements and B chromosomes, may also be considered as parasites of the host genome" seems to me to be out of place, and confusing. Sure, these genetic elements may live at the expense of a 'host', but the 'parasitism' here is really metaphorical (the entry was written, I'm guessing, by a geneticist or cell biologist) as these elements are inherited, not transmitted. And in any case, why aren't they considered symbionts? I think I just answered my own question, and this comment will serve as rationale for deleting the sentence.

Proposed merger

The Parasitism article should not be merged with the Parasite article. Because it would make it difficult to be able to sepratly research each one. comments to: 2smart4myself@gmail.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.235.87.153 (talk • contribs) .

I'm doing a project for my biology class, and one of the requirements is to explain the difference between mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. They just belong together. Basically, I agree with the above opinion. -zaybex —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.146.36.188 (talk • contribs) .

Oppose - Parasitism is fine as an article seperate from Parasite. →ΣcoPhreek_Δ 19:09, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that there is no problem about have both articles. If there was only one article it would be a looot of solid text, having two articles makes it easier to read. And what's more, most of the parasite article is taken up by a list of parasites, which would just make the article too long if the 2 were merged. But I think that both articles could do with a bit of improvement, starting with some pictures and an example of a parasitic cycle. IronChris | (talk) 23:02, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge – the articles should be merged, as they cover essentially the same subject. As for the article being "hard to read", it would not be if the article was properly sectioned. Its true that "Parasites" has an extensive list of links, however, in my opinion that list should be broken off into its own article, "List of parasitic organisms", or something like that. Peter G Werner 01:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and did it - better to ask forgiveness than permission. Leave me a message on my talk page if you have any objections. Peter G Werner 01:56, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to note - I copied the entire Talk:Parasite page to this page and placed it before this section, since the "merge" thread was the only one on this page before the merge. Peter G Werner 03:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Although I do admit that the resulting page is a better article than the previous one, still maybe you could have reopened the merger discussion and given reasoning. I guess the point I'm opposed to is that you unilaterally decided to override the opinions of other wikipedians that had already "voted". →ΣcoPhreek_Δ 04:51, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it was a bit unilateral and I was slightly displeased when I first noticed the merge, but the article looks good so I forgive him! Good job. IronChris | (talk) 04:58, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Sorry – unlike a Vote for Deletion, there really is no process for is no clear process for deciding when there's a consensus to merge or not merge. My actions were a bit unilateral, you're right, however, all of my edits are reversible, and if somebody reverts my changes, I won't get into a revert battle over it. Before reverting, though, ask yourself which version you like better. Peter G Werner 05:26, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Nah! I've already said I like the new article... :) →ΣcoPhreek_Δ 05:30, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Cool – in any event, apologies to all for "jumping the gun". Peter G Werner 05:34, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Parasitic embryo merger

There's been a proposal to merge the Parasitic embryos article into this one. I'm not terribly fond of the idea because, honestly, I don't think "parasitic embryo" is a very good article to begin with and its questionable whether it belongs in Wikipedia at all. Has the theme of "parasitic embryos" been written about by an outside source, or is this somebody's original research? In general, I really don't like the fact that the balance of this article is being shifted from the biological concept of parasitism to an article about parasites in science fiction, which is definitely a secondary topic. Peter G Werner 15:53, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm the editor who added the merge taga. Yeah, I see what you're saying. I wasn't sure what to do with the page myself. I wouldn't oppose a WP:PROD on parasitic embryo, frankly. — TKD::Talk 00:27, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I just blakned out the page and turned it into a redirect page pointing here. If somebody really wants to expand on the topic in a substantial way, its always possible to expand "Parasites in fiction" into a breakout article. (By "substantial", I mean more than a simple list of science fiction movies and video games that include parasites.) I don't mean to denigrate other editors contributions, but there have been a several biology-related articles over the last couple of months ("Spore" being another one) that have suffered from drive-by editing from 14-year-old video game enthusiasts. As somebody who's trying to raise the quality of biology articles on Wikipedia, it gets on my nerves a bit. Peter G Werner 06:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Mmmm... all animals have embryos. So thats not original research.Tourskin 02:26, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Carl Zimmer

Deleted the reference to Carl Zimmer's book Parasite Rex from the "Parasites in Fiction" section, because it's not fiction. (Also, dead link.) However, I think Parasite Rex is more deserving to be on this page than Alien, so where to put it? Sanguinity 23:32, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Intro

This lacks a good intro - it goes of too quickly into symbiotic relationships other than parasitism. It should start of with something like "Parasitism is a form of symbioism in which one or organisms obtain nutrition from another at the expense of the host". Basically, it should introduce what parasitism is, which it doesn't. Tourskin.

Done, easier to read and clearly stated definition Cbwcjw (talk) 15:24, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Rubbish

This article has so little. It could easily be a featured article. Someone get an encyclopedia (not this one!) and add some stuff. Better still, if I get time, I'll try. Tourskin.

Parasites In My Back Yard! I.D. Please!

Ok I left a large bucket under a plant for a month or two. Right before guests came over, I wanted to put it away. It was full of water, leaves and dead flowers. On the inner wall of the bucket there were three ot four worm like creatures that "swollen heads" like when you start to blow up a long party baloon and the tip is more inflated than the rest of the baloon. Anyways, I moved the bucket from under the shadow to the sun and these things started bobbong up and down! When I moved the bucket back into the shadow they stopped and when I moved the bucket into the sun they started to bob up and down again! It was totally disgusting!! And yet fascinating! I think that they are parasites because only parasites would want to make themselves more visible to predators in the sunlight. I dumped the bucket. Now that I think of it, I should have taken pictures! I live in Vancouver, Canada. Does anyone know what they are?24.83.178.11 09:52, 12 February 2007 (UTC)KnowledgeSeeker

It depends on how big they were, but I'm pretty sure that they were some kind of insect larva, not a worm. The description sounds like mosquito larvae (see Image:Culex sp larvae.png), but that would be really small (under 1 cm), though they do bob up and down like crazy when disturbed. Otherwise it could be some kind of fly larva; see for example this Stratiomyidae larva. They were definitely not parasites, though. IronChris | (talk) 01:36, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanx for the reply! I'd have to say that they were about the size of an average earthworm. Laso As far as i can recall (it was a while ago) the re were no distinguishing features other than what I described. i.e. no eyes, mouth,... etc. I am thinking that they defenitely had to be parasites because only parasites would make themselves more visible in light in order to get eaten. Such as those parasites that take over a snail's "antenna" and start pulsating all the colours.24.83.178.11 05:40, 13 February 2007 (UTC)KnowledgeSeeker

Your description definitely sounds like a type of fly larva (ie. a maggot, with no eyes or visible head). I have never heard of parasites that large that would be likely to be floating around in a bucket of water, and I'm doing my MSc in biology. Maybe they just wiggled around because they wanted to get out of the sun and into the shade, and therefore stopped all the fuss when you put them back in the shade. IronChris | (talk) 05:49, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

Ultra cool!!!Tourskin 02:21, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

More....

Now how about how deadly they are? Does someone know how much parasites are causing harm? I hear that billions of litres of blood is lost to worms every year or something. Or was it day? If about half the world's population are infected (3 billion) and a person 1/3 of a litre of blood a day...if thats possible, or they could die. But 1/3 of a litre sounds too much. Well I will remain stupid...

By the way, I'm sure they kill many people in Africa. Sleeping sickness for example.Tourskin 02:24, 19 February 2007]

Parasites can kill. Many many people have them. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.67.116.248 (talk • contribs).

Lenin's Theory of Imperialism

I wanted to point out that parasitism is also a term used by Lenin in Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism; in fact, chapter eight is entitled "Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism". He takes the term from Hobson. Here is an excerpt:

Further, imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by "clipping coupons", who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies. Timocrates 18:36, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Including this would be a digression from the topic of biological competition, much the way a section on economic competition would be out of place in an the article on biological competition. Not to mention, needless introduction of POV into this article. Peter G Werner 20:48, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course it doesn't belong in this article. And it has nothing to do with POV; it is just a term used by Marxist theorists. Does it belong in the disambiguation page? Timocrates 16:01, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Biotrophic viruses?

Under the biotrophic subheading, viruses are mentioned as an example of a biotrophic parasite, whereas in the introduction, it says only eukaryotic organisms can be classified as parasites. I don't know how it really works, but it seems inconsistent. Could someone who knows their stuff sort this out? Frenchwhale 09:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Parasite living conditions?

After carrying out a lot of research, I am trying to find a parasitic organism that finally, after maturity, adopts the living conditions that would be expected from a hive? Many parasitic organisms undergo several stages, often involving an intermediate host, and I am curious to whether there is a species that uses an intermediate host and then develops into a hive social configuration? Is there a species where the offspring from the Queen requires a host to mature from the larval stage to the adult stage? If anyone knows of such a species please post.

Parasites in fiction

Moved here from the article...

Parasites living in or off humans are a favorite theme in the science fiction and horror genres, particularly in the subgenre of body horror. The fear of the human mind and body being used in such a way by another being is an understandably disturbing idea. Works with this theme would be several of the films of David Cronenberg (particularly Shivers), the Alien series of films, the Yeerks of the Animorphs book series, the pods from Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and the Goa'uld of the television series Stargate SG-1. For a list of fictional parasites, see List of parasitic organisms. Even video games have exercised the use of such a fear, the Halo video game series being a prime example with The Flood. Other notable games that use parasites are Metroid Fusion and Resident Evil 4. In Spider-Man, the parasite Venom began as a symbiotic relationship, but gradually shifted to parasitism.

Personally, I despise these trivia sections, but I've moved this here on the off chance someone thinks there's any redeeming value to this at all.  –  ornis⚙ 14:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Major edit of December 4, 2007

The page discussed other symbioses at greater length than the definition of parasitism itself. Some aspects of the definition of parasitism are now expanded, and other symbioses are not discussed at all. Instead, links to the relevant pages are embedded.

For the various subtypes of parasites, I followed a format of brief definition followed (where helpful or necessary) by brief example (thus much of the detail of some examples was removed). To make it accessible, common names were used (eg, “fluke” rather than “trematode”).

Some topics where parasitism comes up often were added to Evolutionary aspects section.

Two ecological sections were added. One on transmission, another on roles in ecology. These topics overlap somewhat but can be treated separately. I considered a section on life cycles, but this would probably be too complex/diverse to treat in a general way. The diversity of parasites could be expanded into its own section, or subsection of Evolutionary aspects.

I don’t think this page should particularly emphasize parasites of humans . A page called Medical parasitology, Parasites of humans or Human disease would be more appropriate for that. This is parasitism in the general sense, so the treatment should be zoological, broad. By the same token, devoting too much space to particular special cases gives the reader the impression that, say, brood parasitism and hyperparasitism is just as common/important/studied as other forms. One type that is common in nature and not much discussed here is plant-plant parasitism. I don’t know enough about it to start a section though. There is an argument for using examples that reflect the organisms that are traditionally studied by parasitologists (worms and protozoans, as opposed to bacteria, viruses).

In the Transmission section, it would be nice to have images of life cycles, general ones with boxes and squares. This kind of thing is more comprehensible that way.

Certainly, one thing that is still sorely lacking is references! After dust settles from this edit, I may add some… —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arga Warga (talk • contribs) 22:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Exploitation

I've suggested we have an article on all exploitative interspecific interactions in ecology, called exploitation (ecology). This would cover the many areas traditionally split into subjects like predation, parasitism, pathogens etc. Thoughts? Richard001 (talk) 07:32, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Parasite manipulation of host behavior

This would make an interesting daughter article. There are so many fascinating examples of parasites taking control of their hosts actions, e.g. praying mantises suicidally throwing themselves into a stream. We can hardly provide much more than a brief account here with one or two examples, which makes summary style the ideal approach.

The subject could instead be the broader 'parasite manipulation of hosts', which would include non-'behavioral' manipulations such as alteration of growth etc (e.g. galls in trees). Richard001 (talk) 00:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Images

I took some pictures of what seems to a be a caterpillar with some kind of parasitic eggs on it. Just wondering if they would be helpful in any articles. ^8thstar 21:41, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

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Evolution favors commensalism

"In Theory, long-term coevolution should lead to a relatively stable relationship tending to commensalism or mutualism"

I'm pretty sure this isn't true, as per theories regarding the evolution of virulence, superinfection etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.23.54.165 (talk) 00:07, 24 January 2009 (UTC) well in school they dont teach us this kind of stuff we should learn it in 5n grade. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.198.211 (talk) 18:36, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

quantitative ecology

The quantitative ecology section needs revising. Either parametric statistics should be avoided OR data are transformed to conform to the assumptions of a parametric test. I think more references are needed to justify the points being made and to guide readers to places where they can look up advice on how best to analyse parasitic data.Emble64 (talk) 12:26, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

'Value'

the section headed value is dubious. It inherently assumes that diversity somehow has an absolute intrinsic 'value'; of course this is entirely a human and subjective imposition of value-statements. The best that can be said is that parasites may have 'effects' at the large population and ecosystem levels, and to note what predictions have been made. However, even this is slightly spurious, since these are entirely hypothetical 'benefits', as far as I am aware the speculations being made in this section have never been substantiated. Use of words like "noble" in the description are also loaded with absolute value-judgements which are incompatible with biological science. I suggest this short section be reworked or removed.

Kind regards,

MS — Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.78.178.108 (talk) 11:35, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Leeches

Leeches are not parasites. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.222.134.149 (talk) 08:07, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

They are ectoparasites. Emble64 (talk) 14:28, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Let's compromise (and be accurate). Some leeches are parasites. I've changed that example to "hookworms" to avoid the ambiguity. Danger! ^{High voltage!} 17:34, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

@Emble64:@Danger: It seems to me there is a general issue with the defition of parasitism given, that the unsigned comment also seems to highlight (see: below) LookingGlass (talk) 14:05, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Parasites Being of the Same Species

Are parasites genuinely unable to be from the same species as their host(s) (which is what this article states)? What about parasitic twins? Heck, what about embryos and early fetuses? Futurist110 (talk) 01:15, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Most parasites are specialized, infecting species with a certain physiology. I tend to think, however, that the generalisation is undue. If you could please quote the sentence that stated that it would be nice.

As for parasitic twins - irrelevant since this is not actually part of a lifecycle, and the so-called "parasitic twin" is not actually developed.

As for fetuses etc.: Don't stop there - let's talk about children in general! François Robere (talk) 15:16, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

In biological terms (though maybe not in moral/political terms) surely that part of a parasitic twin's life that is parasitic is part of their lifecycle. I think there is a general issue with the defition (see: below) LookingGlass (talk) 13:59, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Modifying Host Defense Section

I've edited the section titled "host defense." I've added more material, but still kept the content to a minimal since most of the detailed mechanism of host/parasite interactions are located on other wiki pages. Let me know what you all think.

Mouarick (talk) 21:09, 5 May 2014 (UTC)mouarick

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Define exclusion or is it a lay term?

Dictionary definitions of parasite refer to species that live on/in their "prey", but I think of animals like mosquitoes as parasites and generally they don't do either. Are mosquitoes and ticks then not parasites? In this article I could find no aspect of the definitions given that exclude inclusion of e.g lions, or humans. Lions are dependent upon and live all their lives in close proximity to a wandering herd of their prey (though not "in" it) and intraspecific social parasitism e.g parasitic nursing, defined here as "where some individuals take milk from unrelated females", would include humans who drink cow's milk or even who are provided with wetnurses - assuming the definition here does not need editing. Perhaps however there is no excluding aspect. As the lede concludes: "In many cases, it is difficult to demonstrate harm to the host .. there may be no apparent specialization on the part of the parasite, or the interaction between the organisms may remain short-lived". Yet this seems to include all animals .. fungi .. even plants unless, for instance, parasitism were dependent upon the host being alive while being used as a food source by another, though with respect to cows and wetnurses, this would still seem to include humans. If the term is unscientific i.e nonspecific or insufficiently specific, then I think that fact should be stated at the outset. LookingGlass (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2017 (UTC)

Necrotrophy

I'm doing some New Page Patrol on redirects and have found Necrotrophy pointing here though the term isn't mentioned in the article. Should the term be in the article, should the redirect go here or elsewhere, etc? Parasitoid seems related, but perhaps only refers to insect parasites. Could an expert please help sort this out? There's another redirect from Necrotrophic to this article, and Necrotroph redirects to Parasitoid while Necrotropha goes to Necrophila. PamD 12:21, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

PamD Both redirects are wrong. Necro- means 'Dead-' and both parasites and parasitoids feed on living hosts. I've repointed them to Fungus#Necrotroph, which (sigh) I've created and cited. The genus name Necrotropha is however a correct but old synonym for Necrophila. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:06, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

@Chiswick Chap: Thanks for that - I thought I could find an expert around here. You hadn't retargetted Necrotrophy so I've now done so to complete the set. Thanks for your help. NPP on redirects is interesting - long runs of perfectly reasonable ones to tick as OK, and then the odd quirk like this one! PamD 16:30, 18 February 2018 (UTC)

Archive 1