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Can we view this as nature's mechanism to prevent cannibalism amongst species? Mad cow disease occurred when cattle were fed the remains of other cattle in the
by mtw 10y ago
Can we view this as nature's mechanism to prevent cannibalism amongst species? Mad cow disease occurred when cattle were fed the remains of other cattle in the form of meat and bone meal
- MrBuddyCasino 10y agoWhy would nature care?
- cookiecaper 10y agoCannibalism seriously threatens a species' survival. Risk of disease from eating same-species meat is a good way to stop it.
- maxerickson 10y agoSmall mammals often respond to stress with cannibalism. http://www.petplace.com/article/small-mammals/general/when-your-small-mammal-is-sick/cannibalism http://www.petplace.com/article/small-mammals/general/when-y... Rabbits are somewhat infamous for eating their young. I'm not sure there is any research about it, but it could be a resource preserving behavior.
- zdragnar 10y agoHardly. Plenty of species exhibit cannibalism; see certain spiders and praying mantis (mantis?) post-mating rituals.
- cookiecaper 10y agoCorrect, I don't mean to imply that no species are cannibalistic; as you note, some instances are well-known. Nevertheless, cannibalism can be a real risk for some species and adaptations to prevent it are useful, especially in the case of mammals.
- sqeaky 10y agoA hard to detect and easy to mis-attribute wasting disease is not an adaption.
- XFrequentist 10y agoNature cares not a whit about "species".
- cookiecaper 10y agoPersonification of "nature" is a shorthand. No one actually thinks "nature" is an intelligent entity making independent decisions about the biology of creatures (when people refer to that, they call it "God"). Rather, they mean "Could this be the way that the species' internal biological and evolutionary processes are involved in preventing cannibalism?" Personally, I think "nature's way" is a highly preferable and convenient shorthand. :)
- XFrequentist 10y agoI wasn't objecting to the teleological language (as you say, it's a convenient shorthand for an unconscious process). Rather, the idea that "species survival" is a relevant variable for selection to target is thoroughly confused (or, nature cares deeply for the gene, but knows not of your "species").
- yblu 10y agoAll things equal. Specie A (with this disease) stop cannibalizing after seeing the outcome, better chance of survival. Specie B (without this disease) eat themselves to the last person... Lower chance of survival as a specie. Nature "cares" by generating lots of options, then let the fittest to survive. So while nature doesn't intend or plan for a specie to survive, the outcome is no different from if it did. I believe the OP means "care" in this sense.
- Cerium 10y agoIf anything, the aversion to cannibalism would be an effect of prion disease.
- fireflash38 10y agoI think assigning animus to nature is misleading here. It's a factor that once known would influence people away from cannibalism, but there's plenty of cannibalistic species that don't seem to suffer from prion diseases (and CWD is the opposite -- prion disease with rare cannibalism).