Parasites or Cohabitants: Cruel Omnipresent Usurpers or Creative “Éminences Grises”?

Vannier-Santos, Marcos A.; Lenzi, Henrique Leonel

doi:10.1155/2011/214174

Cited by 21 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 206 publications

(226 reference statements)

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“…Parasites might be seen as key elements of all ecosystems, including 'internal' ecosystems within host organisms and as evolutionary partners, rather than as enemies that it is necessary to eradicate at all cost (e. g., [68]). Deciphering interactions between parasites and hosts, and taking advantage of them, might be a better approach.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasite–Parasite Interactions in the Wild: How To Detect Them?

Hellard

Fouchet

Vavre

et al. 2015

Trends in Parasitology

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Inter-specific interactions between parasites impact on parasite intra-host dynamics, host health, and disease management. Identifying and understanding interaction mechanisms in the wild is crucial for wildlife disease management. It is however complex because several scales are interlaced. Parasite-parasite interactions are likely to occur via mechanisms at the within-host level, but also at upper levels (host population and community). Furthermore, interactions occurring at one level of organization spread to upper levels through cascade effects. Even if cascade effects are important confounding factors, we argue that we can also benefit from them because upper scales often provide a way to survey a wider range of parasites at lower cost. New protocols and theoretical studies (especially across scales) are necessary to take advantage of this opportunity.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parasite–Parasite Interactions in the Wild: How To Detect Them?

Hellard

Fouchet

Vavre

et al. 2015

Trends in Parasitology

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“…Parasites are certainly a major component of biodiversity (Cribb and Bray 1998;Dobson et al 2008;Poulin and Morand 2004) and ecosystems Lafferty et al 2006) and thus deserve appropriate interest (Brooks and Hoberg 2000;Hoberg et al 2009;Vannier-Santos and Lenzi 2011). However, parasitology has been often ill-considered (Vickerman 2009) and is still underrepresented in textbooks (Nichols and Gomez 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Baylis 1915;Braun and Lühe 1910;Dujardin 1845;Van Beneden 1878, 1887 include a chapter about the processing of parasites. They describe many methods, but agree at least on one point, the need to use only freshly killed hosts to obtain living parasites.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A quick and simple method, usable in the field, for collecting parasites in suitable condition for both morphological and molecular studies

2012

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Many methods have been proposed for collecting and fixing parasites, but most were written before the molecular age, and were intended to be practised by experienced parasitologists in well-equipped laboratories. We describe here a very simple method, illustrated by photographs, for collecting helminths from the digestive tract of vertebrates. It only requires a few plastic vials, some ethanol and a means to heat water. Basically, the method consists of: (a) the extraction of all organs from the abdominal cavity; (b) opening the digestive system longitudinally; (c) agitate gut and contents in a saline solution (i.e. ca. 9% NaCl or 1/4 sea water in tap water); (d) decant in saline as many times as needed to clean contents; (e) immediately fix parasites in near-boiling saline; (f) discard saline and keep specimens in 95% ethanol. Additional information is given for collecting parasites from fish gills with a similar process. The method will collect most helminths (digeneans, larval cestodes, nematodes, acanthocephalans) from the digestive tract, and monogeneans and isopod and copepod crustaceans from fish gills. The specimens will be suitable for both morphological study and DNA sequencing. The method is simple, fast, inexpensive and can be used by untrained personnel, even in the field without electricity and without a binocular microscope. It can also be used by trained parasitologists who need to expedite treatment of abundant samples.

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“…The interconnection of ecosystems constitutes a dynamic and self-regulating biosphere: the Net of Life (Sandín, 1997; Maturana and Varela, 1999). Even when these concepts appear to be well studied, it persists the intention to explain everything by a selfishness and warfare view (Nedelcu et al, 2011; Vannier-Santos and Lenzi, 2011) that does not take into account that organisms evolved intertwined and the coexistence is the result of what we are studying. As one example, Nedelcu et al (2011) deal with the problem of altruism.…”

Section: Other Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selfishness, warfare, and economics; or integration, cooperation, and biology

Salvucci¹

2012

Front. Cell. Inf. Microbio.

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The acceptance of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is not complete and it has been pointed out its limitation to explain the complex processes that constitute the transformation of species. It is necessary to discuss the explaining power of the dominant paradigm. It is common that new discoveries bring about contradictions that are intended to be overcome by adjusting results to the dominant reductionist paradigm using all sorts of gradations and combinations that are admitted for each case. In addition to the discussion on the validity of natural selection, modern findings represent a challenge to the interpretation of the observations with the Darwinian view of competition and struggle for life as theoretical basis. New holistic interpretations are emerging related to the Net of Life, in which the interconnection of ecosystems constitutes a dynamic and self-regulating biosphere: viruses are recognized as a macroorganism with a huge collection of genes, most unknown that constitute the major planet's gene pool. They play a fundamental role in evolution since their sequences are capable of integrating into the genomes in an “infective” way and become an essential part of multicellular organisms. They have content with “biological sense” i.e., they appear as part of normal life processes and have a serious role as carrier elements of complex genetic information. Antibiotics are cell signals with main effects on general metabolism and transcription on bacterial cells and communities. The hologenome theory considers an organism and all of its associated symbiotic microbes (parasites, mutualists, synergists, amensalists) as a result of symbiopoiesis. Microbes, helmints, that are normally understood as parasites are cohabitants and they have cohabited with their host and drive the evolution and existence of the partners. Each organism is the result of integration of complex systems. The eukaryotic organism is the result of combination of bacterial, virus, and eukaryotic DNA and it is the result of the interaction of its own genome with the genome of its microbiota, and their metabolism are intertwined (as a “superorganism”) along evolution. The darwinian paradigm had its origin in the free market theories and concepts of Malthus and Spencer. Then, nature was explained on the basis of market theories moving away from an accurate explanation of natural phenomena. It is necessary to acknowledge the limitations of the dominant dogma. These new interpretations about biological processes, molecules, roles of viruses in nature, and microbial interactions are remarkable points to be considered in order to construct a solid theory adjusted to the facts and with less speculations and tortuous semantic traps.

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Parasites or Cohabitants: Cruel Omnipresent Usurpers or Creative “Éminences Grises”?

Cited by 21 publications

References 206 publications

Parasite–Parasite Interactions in the Wild: How To Detect Them?

Parasite–Parasite Interactions in the Wild: How To Detect Them?

A quick and simple method, usable in the field, for collecting parasites in suitable condition for both morphological and molecular studies

Selfishness, warfare, and economics; or integration, cooperation, and biology

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