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
Parasite vaccines within reach
Jul 03, 2008 |
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Even though parasites are complex creatures, the mammalian immune response to them is surprisingly simple, leading University of California, Berkeley, researchers to predict that creating vaccines for parasitic ...
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.
When hosts go extinct, what happens to their parasites?
Jun 01, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Hands wring and teeth gnash over the loss of endangered species like the panda or the polar bear. But what happens to the parasites hosted by endangered species? And although most people would ...
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.
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 ...
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 ...
Study shows parasites outweigh predators
Biology /
Jul 23, 2008 |
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In a study of free-living and parasitic species in three estuaries on the Pacific coast of California and Baja California, a team of researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, the United ...
Locking Parasites in Host Cell Could Be New Way to Fight Malaria, Penn Study Shows
Apr 04, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania have discovered that parasites hijack host-cell proteins to ensure their survival and proliferation, suggesting new ways to control the diseases ...
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 ...
Immune genes adapt to parasites
May 25, 2009 |
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Thank parasites for making some of our immune proteins into the inflammatory defenders they are today, according to a population genetics study that will appear in the June 8 issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine (onlin ...
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 ...
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.
Scans show immune cells intercepting parasites
Dec 10, 2008 |
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Researchers may have identified one of the body's earliest responses to a group of parasites that causes illness in developing nations.
Birds use social learning to enhance nest defense
Jun 04, 2009 |
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Reed warblers live with the threat that a cuckoo bird will infiltrate their nest, remove one of their eggs, and replace it with the cuckoo's own. This 'parasitism' enables the cuckoo to have its young raised by unsuspecting ...
Specific small RNA pathways protect germ line from transposons
May 05, 2009 |
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Cells of higher organisms are in a constant struggle against some of their own DNA - repeated bits of DNA sequence called transposons that have infiltrated host genomes over the eons. Transposons damage the rest of the genome ...
