Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigS
Yep .. the circumstances which cause these bacteria to become toxic, may well result in this species being on the well-trodden path towards extinction. However, you could also say that this species has been around for a very, very long time, and has clearly demonstrated its survival capabilities.
Therein lies a paradox .. if its been happy living in a symbiotic relationship with hosts for all that long, why does it still posses the ability to kill itself off in this manner ?
Cheers
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A good example, that comes to mind, is the ebola virus (okay not a bacteria - but same evolutionary principles apply). Ebola is too virulent to spread - it's not a very successful virus. Its hosts tend to die faster than new hosts are infected. However, some part or parts of its genome will (probably) be doing very well in other (non-ebola) viruses which do better in spreading and increasing the over all populations. The genes that are common are the genes that prosper.
Even better, some of those genes may have gotten merged with the human genome and doing quite well.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...s-human-genome
Mark C.