Talk:Symbiosis/Archive 1
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
| Archive 1 | Archive 2 → |
I got redirected from biotrophic to here, but theres no mention of it in the article (necrotrophic isn't mentioned either). Could anyone add it in. Also this article seems very short bfor such an important topic. Thanks.
This article is dire. In the second section 'Changes in Interactions' there is a very subjective assertion that 'Mutualism, parasitism, and commensalism are often not discrete categories of interactions and should rather be perceived as a continuum of interaction ranging from parasitism to mutualism.' This is not cited. In 'Symbiosis and Evolution', the quote "Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking." is not referenced properly and I would question its relevance or correctness. THe article on the whole is very poor.
Please mention corals and other interesting examples. I do not have the credentials to do so. Ketankhare 10:03, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
mucous -> mucus, surely, unless a mucous membrane is meant? -- Anon.
How does an emotive relationship play in to a Symbiotic relationship. ie. a pet. if a dog gets food and shelter under this definition the dog is peraisitic. that doesn't seem right.
Doesn't this article need to at least mention antibiosis? soverman 16:06 9 Jan 2006 (UTC)
Dogs are parasitic. They leech food and shelter off humans and give nothing back except slobber, fleas and rabies. I declare myself thoroughly a cat person. Whoever removed this text before clearly doesn't understand the nature of a discussion page.
A dog is not a parasite. It gets food and shelter, while the human owner gets some real or percieved benefit. After all, the human chooses to feed the dog. I suppose a cat might consider humans to be parasites who live in the cat's house.--RLent 17:56, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
You might also say (á la Agent Smith) that humans are the parasites of the world, but this isn't the point.
A parasite is an organism that increases its own fitness (reproductive success) while causing a cost to the fitness of another individual. Since all pets obtain food (and veterinary treatment) due to time and money spent by humans, they should be classified as parasites. It doesn't matter that the human perceives a benefit. If a mosquito injected you with ecstasy while it sucked your blood you wouldn't claim that it shouldn't be classed as a parasite.
You're all confused. Parasitism is a relationship between members of different species in which the parasite benefits and the host is harmed. Whether or not a dog is a parasite depends on your interpretation of human losses and gains in the relationship. If you believe that humans benefit from dogs (emotionally or otherwise, it doesn't matter; emotions are not unbiological) substantially--or, as research has often shown, that our life expectancy can be increased because of their presence, then you have to conclude that the dog-human relationship is a kind of mutualism. "But, it's cultural, it's related to human desires" you could argue, but you'd be wrong...culture and desire are an evolved aspect of the human species and they are not phenomena that exist independently of biology and ecology.
On the other hand, if you think people are compromising their ability to find mates or to fight diseases or to properly nourish themselves when they acquire a dog (an argument -could- be made, I suppose), then the dog is a parasite. This is a stricter scrutiny on the idea of "detriment" or "cost." Species that expend energy for a benefit are not necessarily experiencing parasitism. A pear tree that transports its seeds to distant grounds via the bowels of a horse, and meanwhile adds to the weight that the horse must carry throughout the day -- this tree is not a parasite. Even mutualist relationships, like that of a crocodile and its dental-hygenist birds, require energy expenditure. It has to be more than that, it has to compromise the species' evolved function in its ecological niche...e.g. lessen its chances of producing fertile offspring, its chances of normal life expectancy, etc.
Some of you, in this discussion, are using the term parasite as a metaphor. Owen Wilson's most recent character 'Dupree' is a parasite (metaphorically)...an individual "living off," or otherwise burdening, another member of his own species. Hurting the host, benefiting the parasite. But this is just a way of understanding the tenor of a story or a relationship through the vehicle of a convenient biological term. The term "parasitism," when used in connection with symbiosis, describes an evolutionary result of the ongoing relationship between evolved species. If I buy a dog tomorrow, and he weakens my immune system while getting fat on my dime, his parasitism is metaphorical; it's a unique dysfunction of the evoled relationship between dogs and humans (whatever that is). A mosquito, by contrast, bites you in exactly the way that its DNA have designed it to bite you, and it benefits accordingly, at your expense. And YES, if a species of mosquito evolved that conferred positive psychotropics (maybe a benign, creativity-inspiring, low-side-effects strand of XTC) upon its host, and the benefits of the psychotropics outweighed the costs of the bite, then we would describe that as a mutualist relationship. Don't get confused by the standard or conventional (i.e. metaphorical) ways of thinking about parasitism; it should not be a moral or aesthetic issue.
Should a link be made to Adam Smith? Me lkjhgfdsa 21:30, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
- I looked at the Smith page and didn't see anything about symbiosis (a biological phenomenon). What would be your reason for the link? Satyrium 02:22, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
