This is from the linked story about Worms causing Grasshoppers to kill themselves by drowning, so the worm can get out an breed in the water.
Scientists have long argued whether strange behavior in parasite-infested animals is deliberately engineered or simply an accidental side effect of infection.
The odd thing to me is that there's an argument. It seems that there is a perfectly good evolutionary argument for both. Say you have these worms that live in Grasshoppers and have to breed in the water but have no way of "convincing" the grasshopper to jump into the water. That might be a stable existece, as some number of grasshoppers probably end up in the water just by accident. Then say you have two different mutations in different strains of worm. One increases the chance that a grasshopper will be run over by a car and one increases the chance that the grasshopper will drown. It's pretty obvious that the car smushed worm will not survive for long and that the worms that increase the chance of grasshoppers drowning will start to out breed the "normal" worms. Then another mutation would increase the chance of your grasshopper drowning and so on till we're where we are today.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-04-05 07:45 pm (UTC)The odd thing to me is that there's an argument. It seems that there is a perfectly good evolutionary argument for both. Say you have these worms that live in Grasshoppers and have to breed in the water but have no way of "convincing" the grasshopper to jump into the water. That might be a stable existece, as some number of grasshoppers probably end up in the water just by accident. Then say you have two different mutations in different strains of worm. One increases the chance that a grasshopper will be run over by a car and one increases the chance that the grasshopper will drown. It's pretty obvious that the car smushed worm will not survive for long and that the worms that increase the chance of grasshoppers drowning will start to out breed the "normal" worms. Then another mutation would increase the chance of your grasshopper drowning and so on till we're where we are today.
no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-04-05 09:40 pm (UTC)