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A fish parasite, the isopod Cymothoa exigua, replacing the tongue of a Lithognathus. Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. [1]
Host–parasite coevolution is a special case of coevolution, where a host and a parasite continually adapt to each other. This can create an evolutionary arms race between them. A more benign possibility is of an evolutionary trade-off between transmission and virulence in the parasite, as if it kills its host too quickly, the parasite will ...
Some organisms live in close association with a host and only become parasitic when environmental conditions deteriorate. [5] A parasite may have a long-term relationship with its host, as is the case with all endoparasites. The guest seeks out the host and obtains food or another service from it, but does not usually kill it. [6]
Many of the bacteria aid in breaking down nutrients for the host, and in return, our bodies act as their ecosystem. [7] Parasitism occurs when the pathogen benefits from the relationship while the host is harmed. This can be seen in the unicellular Plasmodium falciparum parasite which causes malaria in humans. [8]
Each party in a coevolutionary relationship exerts selective pressures on the other, thereby affecting each other's evolution. Coevolution includes many forms of mutualism, host-parasite, and predator-prey relationships between species, as well as competition within or between species.
Primary parasitoids have the simplest parasitic relationship, involving two organisms, the host and the parasitoid. Hyperparasitoids are parasitoids of parasitoids; secondary parasitoids have a primary parasitoid as their host, so there are three organisms involved. Hyperparasitoids are either facultative (can be a primary parasitoid or a ...
Cospeciation is a form of coevolution in which the speciation of one species dictates speciation of another species and is most commonly studied in host-parasite relationships. In the case of a host-parasite relationship, if two hosts of the same species get within close proximity of each other, parasites of the same species from each host are ...
Parasites can provide information about host population ecology. In fisheries biology, for example, parasite communities can be used to distinguish distinct populations of the same fish species co-inhabiting a region. Additionally, parasites possess a variety of specialized traits and life-history strategies that enable them to colonize hosts.