How parasites change their host's behavior - Jaap de Roode
View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/how-parasites-change-their-host-s-behavior-jaap-de-roode The biggest challenge in a parasite's life is to move from ...
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Which of these entities has evolved the ability to manipulate an animal many times its size? The answer is all of them. These are all parasites, organisms that live on or inside another host organism, which they harm and sometimes even kill. Parasite survival depends on transmitting from one host to the next, sometimes through an intermediate species. Our parasites elegantly achieve this by manipulating their host's behavior, sometimes through direct brain hijacking. For example, this is the Gordian worm. One of its hosts, this cricket. The Gordian worm needs water to mate, but the cricket prefers dry land. So once it's big enough to reproduce, the worm produces proteins that garble the cricket's navigational system. The confused cricket jumps around erratically, ...
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Which of these entities has evolved the ability to manipulate an animal many times its size? The answer is all of them. These are all parasites, organisms that live on or inside another host organism, which they harm and sometimes even kill. Parasite survival depends on transmitting from one host to the next, sometimes through an intermediate species. Our parasites elegantly achieve this by manipulating their host's behavior, sometimes through direct brain hijacking. For example, this is the Gordian worm. One of its hosts, this cricket. The Gordian worm needs water to mate, but the cricket prefers dry land. So once it's big enough to reproduce, the worm produces proteins that garble the cricket's navigational system. The confused cricket jumps around erratically, ...
