Archive for the 'agressive symbiosis' Category
Killer Plagues: Will they wipe us out or will we co-evolve?
Author: Nina Munteanu
—René Dubois, Mirage of Heath
The raging epidemic of acquired immunodeficiency syndrome has shocked the world. It is still not comprehended widely that it is a natural, almost predictable, phenomenon
—Joshua Lederberg
For most of our history, viral and bacterial plagues have mystified us and caused untold human fatalities. “They have caused more death and terror than war or any other calamity,” claims Frank Ryan, M.D. and author of “Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues”. We all know about the Black Death or Black Plague (commonly attributed to Bubonic Plague) caused by the bacterium, Yersinia pestis and carried by fleas on black rats. The Black Plague devastated Europe and Asia in the mid 1300s, killing an estimated 75 million people, around 1/3 to 2/3 of Europe’s population at the time.
Another devastating killer was the virus for smallpox, which likely crossed over from animals to humans about 10,000 years ago. The disease attacked Alexander the Great’s army in 4th Century B.C. and killed Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. It destroyed entire cultures. As recently as the 1960s over two million people were killed by the disease every year. Thanks to a worldwide anti-smallpox vaccination program, by May 8, 1980, the World Health Assembly officially declared it eradicated.
However, bacteria and viruses can evolve as much in a day as we evolve in a thousand years, giving them an advantage in evolving new mechanisms to evade our defences. Michio Kaku, author of “Visions” said, “The careless and rampant overuse of antibiotics today has killed off all but the strongest and most resistant bacteria. Our own bodies have become a Darwinian battleground where only the nastiest mutant strains of bacteria survive and thrive.” Although man can build a better mousetrap, nature always seems to build a better mouse.
n his book, “Virus X” Dr. Frank Ryan coined the term “aggressive symbiont” to explain a common form of symbiosis where one or both symbiotic partners demonstrates an aggressive and potentially harmful effect on the other’s competitor or potential predator. Examples abound, but a few are worth mentioning here. In the South American forests, a species of acacia tree that produces a waxy berry of protein at the ends of their leaves that provides nourishment for the growing infants of the ant colony residing in the tree. The ants, in turn not only keep the foliage clear of herbivores and preying insects through a stinging assault, but they make hunting forays into the wilderness of the tree, destroying the growing shoots of potential rivals to the acacia. Viruses commonly form “aggressive symbiotic” relationships with their hosts, one example of which is the herpes-B virus, Herpesvirus saimiri, and the squirrel monkey (the virus induces cancer in the competing marmoset monkey). Ryan suggests that the Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks follow a similar pattern of “aggressive symbiosis”.
anization—molecular, cellular, organismic, and social—one confronts equilibrium [symbiotic] patterns. Within such equilibria, any alteration from ‘outside’ tends to provoke compensatory changes [aggressive symbiosis] throughout the system to minimize overall upheaval.” One of a legacy of examples of aggressive symbiosis in history includes smallpox: presumably in the process of symbiotic adaptation through co-evolution with the Europeans, they introduced it to the Aztecs with devastating results. Other examples include measles, malaria, and yellow fever.
Recommended Reading:
read users' comments (11)Co-evolution: Cooperation & Aggressive Symbiosis
Author: Nina Munteanu
Most impediments to scientific understanding are conceptual locks, not factual lacks…We know ourselves best and tend to view other creatures as mirrors of our own constitution and social arrangements.
—Stephen Jay Gould, Bully for Brontosaurus
The evolution of species naturally arises from its response to its landscape, climate, access to shelter and nourishment, as well as the nature of its interaction with its community (e.g., competition and cooperation).
In a previous post of mine, I discussed the phenomenon called “endosymbiosis” by Dr. Lynn Margulis, who suggested a cellular evolution based on ‘cooperation’ rather than simple ‘competition’ between viral or bacterial infection and host cell. This co-evolutionary behaviour runs counter to the traditional route of natural selection and contradicts the ruthless selfishness of Darwinian thinking. Such an evolving relationship between two different species of life, living together in a very close affinity of mutual benefit is common in nature. 
Let’s take a look at the simple virus: the ecological “home” of the virus is the genome of any potential host and scientists have remained baffled by the overwhelming evidence for ‘accomodation’; a virus initially very aggressive, may exhibit less aggression toward an evolution of partnership.
Co-evolution was first proposed by Ehrlich and Raven in 1964 to explain the parallel evolution of butterflies and their host plants. Virologist, Frank Ryan calls it “a wonderful marriage in nature—a partnership in which the definition of predator and prey blurs, until it seems to metamorphose to something altogether different.” Co-evolution is now an established theme in the biology of virus-host relationships. Relationships span from the complex interaction between arboviruses and their vector mosquitoes to the one between the malaria-causing plasmodium and humans or the hantavirus and the deer mouse.
Ryan states that “today…every monkey, baboon, chimpanzee and gorilla is carrying at least ten different species of symbiotic viruses.”
“Why,” asks Dr. Frank Ryan, “is co-evolution [and its partner, symbiosis] such a common pattern in nature?” Ryan coined the term “genomic intelligence” to explain the form of intelligence exerted by viruses and the capacity of the genome to be both receptive and responsive to nature. It involves an incredible interaction between the genetic template and nature that governs even viruses. Symbiosis and natural selection need not be viewed as mutually contradictory. Russian biologists, Andrei Famintsyn and Konstantine Merezhkovskii invented the term “symbiogenesis” to explain the fantastic synthesis of new living organisms from symbiotic unions. Citing the evolution of mitochondria and the chloroplast within a primitive host cell to form the more complex eukaryotic cell (as originally theorized by Lynn Margulis), Ryan noted that “it would be hard to imagine how the step by step gradualism of natural selection could have resulted in this brazenly passionate intercourse of life!”
In his book, “Virus X” Dr. Frank Ryan coined the term “aggressive symbiont” to explain a common form of symbiosis where one or both symbiotic partners demonstrates an aggressive and potentially harmful effect on the other’s competitor or potential predator. Examples abound, but a few are worth mentioning here. In the South American forests, a species of acacia tree that produces a waxy berry of protein at the ends of their leaves that provides nourishment for the growing infants of the ant colony residing in the tree. The ants, in turn not only keep the foliage clear of herbivores and preying insects through a stinging assault, but they make hunting forays into the wilderness of the tree, destroying the growing shoots of potential rivals to the acacia. Viruses commonly form “aggressive symbiotic” relationships with their hosts, one example of which is the herpes-B virus, Herpesvirus saimiri, and the squirrel monkey (the virus induces cancer in the competing marmoset monkey). Ryan suggests that the Ebola and hantavirus outbreaks follow a similar pattern of “aggressive symbiosis”.
The historian, William H. McNeill, suggested that a form of “aggressive symbiosis” played a key role in the history of human civilization. “At every level of organization—molecular, cellular, organismic, and social—one confronts equilibrium [symbiotic] patterns. Within such equilibria, any alteration from ‘outside’ tends to provoke compensatory changes [aggressive symbiosis] throughout the system to minimize overall upheaval.” One of a legacy of examples of aggressive symbiosis in history includes smallpox: presumably in the process of symbiotic adaptation through co-evolution with the Europeans, they introduced it to the Aztecs with devastating results. Other examples include measles, malaria, and yellow fever.
Well, this puts a whole new twist on the concept of encroachment and development, doesn’t it?…
Recommended Reading:
Ryan, Frank, M.D. 1997. Virus X: Tracking the New Killer Plagues. Little, Brown and Company, New York, N.Y. 430pp.