Related topics: malaria
Parasitism
hideParasitism is a type of symbiotic relationship between two different organisms where one organism, the parasite, takes favor from the host, sometimes for a prolonged time. In general, parasites are much smaller than their hosts, show a high degree of specialization for their mode of life, and reproduce more quickly and in greater numbers than their hosts. Classic examples of parasitism include interactions between vertebrate hosts and diverse animals such as tapeworms, flukes, the Plasmodium species, and scabs. Parasitism is differentiated from parasitoidism, a relationship in which the host is always killed by the parasite such as moths, butterflies, ants, flies and others.
The harm and benefit in parasitic interactions concern the biological fitness of the organisms involved. Parasites reduce host fitness in many ways, ranging from general or specialized pathology (such as castration), impairment of secondary sex characteristics, to the modification of host behaviour. Parasites increase their fitness by exploiting hosts for food, habitat and dispersal.
Although the concept of parasitism applies unambiguously to many cases in nature, it is best considered part of a continuum of types of interactions between species, rather than an exclusive category. Particular interactions between species may satisfy some but not all parts of the definition. In many cases, it is difficult to demonstrate that the host is harmed. In others, there may be no apparent specialization on the part of the parasite, or the interaction between the organisms may be short-lived. In medicine, only eukaryotic organisms are considered parasites, with the exclusion of bacteria and viruses. Some branches of biology, however, regard members of these groups as parasitic.[citation needed]
For more information about Parasitism, read the full article at
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News tagged with parasites
Good dentistry may have saved the dinosaurs
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Dec 14, 2009 |
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Infectious diseases can be transmitted by sneezing, touching, or - for Tasmanian devils - biting each other on the face, a habit that may have driven the dinosaurs to extinction through the transmission of a protozoan parasite.
Parasite evades death by promoting host cell survival
Dec 08, 2009 |
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Researchers have discovered how the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas' disease, prolongs its survival in infected cells. A protein on the parasite activates the enzyme Akt, which blocks cell ...
Scientists report original source of malaria
Aug 03, 2009 |
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Researchers have identified what they believe is the original source of malignant malaria: a parasite found in chimpanzees in equatorial Africa.
Research supports toxoplasmosis link to schizophrenia
Mar 11, 2009 |
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Scientists have discovered how the toxoplasmosis parasite may trigger the development of schizophrenia and other bipolar disorders.
Parasite breaks its own DNA to avoid detection
Apr 15, 2009 |
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The parasite Trypanosoma brucei, which causes African sleeping sickness, is like a thief donning a disguise. Every time the host's immune cells get close to destroying the parasite, it escapes detection by rearranging its DN ...
Deadly parasite's rare sexual dalliances may help scientists neutralize it
Apr 09, 2009 |
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For years, microbiologist Stephen Beverley, Ph.D., has tried to get the disease-causing parasite Leishmania in the mood for love. In this week's Science, he and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health report that t ...
How mosquitoes could teach us a trick in the fight against malaria
Mar 05, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The means by which most deadly malaria parasites are detected and killed by the mosquitoes that carry them is revealed for the first time in research published today in Science Express. The di ...
Measuring and modeling blood flow in malaria
Nov 23, 2009 |
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When people have malaria, they are infected with Plasmodium parasites, which enter the body from the saliva of a mosquito, infect cells in the liver, and then spread to red blood cells. Inside the blood cells, the parasites ...
A boy for every girl? Not even close
Sep 10, 2009 |
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In a perfect world, for every boy there would of course be a girl, but a new study shows that actual sex ratios can sometimes sway very far from that ideal. In fact, the male-to-female ratio of one tropical butterfly has ...
Friendly gut bacteria lend a hand to fight infection, study suggests
Aug 19, 2009 |
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Immunology researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found that bacteria present in the human gut help initiate the body's defense mechanisms against Toxoplasma gondii, the parasite responsible for to ...
Study finds role for parasites in evolution of sex
Jul 06, 2009 |
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What's so great about sex? From an evolutionary perspective, the answer is not as obvious as one might think. An article published in the July issue of the American Naturalist suggests that sex may have evolved in part a ...
Daily temperature shifts may alter malaria patterns
Aug 03, 2009 |
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Daytime temperature fluctuations greatly alter the incubation period of malaria parasites in mosquitoes and alter transmission rates of the disease. Consideration of these fluctuations reveals a more accurate picture of climate ...
Parasites keep things sexy in 'hotspots'
Jul 23, 2009 |
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The coevolutionary struggle between a New Zealand snail and its worm parasite makes sex advantageous for the snail, whose females favor asexual reproduction in the absence of parasites, say Indiana University ...
Synthetic biology can help extend anti-malaria drug effectiveness
Mar 06, 2009 |
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In addition to providing a simple and much less expensive means of making artemisinin, the most powerful anti-malaria drug in use today, synthetic biology can also help to extend the effectiveness of this ...
Breakthrough in treatment of sleeping sickness
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Apr 03, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists at the University of Glasgow have made a significant breakthrough in the treatment of Sleeping Sickness, otherwise known as Human African Trypanosomasis.
