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Is there a theory for what purpose the Botulinum Toxin evolved for? I don't see that paralyzing your host is particularly useful for a bacterium.

gostsamo 5y ago
The bacteria thrives in rotting meat, so killing the host might be exactly what it needs. It produces lots of spores present everywhere, so transmission from host to host is not an issue. Edit: what's -> lots
Nextgrid 5y ago
Can it be randomness? Unless paralyzing/killing the host is actively harmful, it might evolve by chance and remain as-is.
swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
Being an anaerobic bacteria and one that can lie dormant for long periods of time, I don't think it needs the host to be alive.
Borrible 5y ago
It comes in handy for organisms that happen to like feasting on decaying bodies through saprophytic nutrition. Paralysis enhances the chance of dying. Being anaerobic limits their expansion. Thanks to the Great Oxidation Event, cyanobacteria caused. By the way, often humans and other multicellular Organisms are just battleground or collateral damage in billion year old wars between bacteria and/or viruses.
sacred_numbers 5y ago
Clostridium botulinum is anaerobic, and live in soil, so living humans are not a particularly good host. Dead humans could be, though, so natural selection would favor strains that efficiently returned themselves and their descendants back to the soil.
croes 5y ago
Evolution doesn't need purpose. As long as a feature doesn't reduce the survival rate, it remains in place. The toxicity could just be a side effect of the spores durability and longevity.
- aerostable_slug 5y ago
  Exactly. See also, cats & sweet flavors: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4766556 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=476655... A defective gene resulted in No Big Deal to a very successful class of animals.
AlotOfReading 5y ago
C. Botulinum has a complicated life cycle that involves infecting vertebrates, killing them, and then infecting the invertebrates that feed on the body during decomposition. The bacteria don't particularly care about the host and just want it dead as quickly as possible so they can get on with their real hosts. [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040 https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040
- linspace 5y ago
  What would be the role of the bacteria in a zombie invasion? Would it eat the zombies away or would it give them natural protection from predators? Both?
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    Botulinum toxins are paralytic, so they'd make very tame zombies. Fungi would take care of the rest pretty quickly.
    - jimworm 5y ago
      Its very close cousin tetanus toxin has the opposite effect, but would also cause zombies to be immobile all the same.
- noisy_boy 5y ago
  Might be interesting to know how vultures deal with this.
  - Igelau 5y ago
    Nature's beautiful garbage disposal. Botulism. Anthrax. Vultures don't care.
  - skywal_l 5y ago
    https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/25/366545524/how-can-vultures-eat-rotten-roadkill-and-survive https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/25/3665455... They are not sure as there are various hypotheses apparently: > He says vulture stomach acid is 10 to 100 times stronger than human stomach acid, "so it seems like the stomach itself is a very harsh environment." > "Another hypothesis could be that they're actually using the bacteria in the stomach as some sort of probiotics," Hansen says. By having a gut full of a few tolerable species of bacteria, it's possible that those would crowd out other deadly microbes.
CobrastanJorji 5y ago
I'm in no way a scientist, but it sounds like the bacteria grows best in oxygen-free, low acidity environments with a lot of protein: that's dead things. Paralyzing your host is a bad idea for diseases that will be permanently destroyed shortly after their host dies, but it's a pretty great plan if it creates a wonderful ecosystem free of pesky immune cells and oxygen for you to grow and produce spores that can happily sit around forever waiting for something to eat them.
lkrubner 5y ago
A pathogen's needs will, over time, converge with the needs of its host, but only if the pathogen is only able to survive in one species. When a pathogen is able to feed off of many species, its needs never converge with the needs of any particular host.
- kragen 5y ago
  Do you mean its needs for reproductive fitness? Only if it's transmitted only from parents to offspring.
catlikesshrimp 5y ago
I can't answer your question for C Botulinum. But many times we are just in the middle of warfare. That is, it is an accident we are harmed. For instance, Corynebacterium Diphtheriae is not lethal per se, but then comes a virus that infects the bacteria, and kills the bacteria, and a byproduct of the virus causes the bacteria to cause diphteria. The phage (the bacteria virus) provides no advantage to C diphteriae. My hypothesis for clostridiums, that includes C botulinum, is that they do want to kill their host, however. They kind of kill the planet they live in as they can thrive in the carcass while it lasts. So, deathly clostridiums have this at least short term advantage over non deathly ones. C. tetani, perfrigens, botulinum and difficile can all kill you. However, C. perfrigens does it differently, by diggesting you before killing you, "on the fly" or "just in time"

gostsamo 5y ago

The bacteria thrives in rotting meat, so killing the host might be exactly what it needs. It produces lots of spores present everywhere, so transmission from host to host is not an issue. Edit: what's -> lots

Nextgrid 5y ago

Can it be randomness? Unless paralyzing/killing the host is actively harmful, it might evolve by chance and remain as-is.

swagasaurus-rex 5y ago

Being an anaerobic bacteria and one that can lie dormant for long periods of time, I don't think it needs the host to be alive.

Borrible 5y ago

It comes in handy for organisms that happen to like feasting on decaying bodies through saprophytic nutrition. Paralysis enhances the chance of dying. Being anaerobic limits their expansion. Thanks to the Great Oxidation Event, cyanobacteria caused. By the way, often humans and other multicellular Organisms are just battleground or collateral damage in billion year old wars between bacteria and/or viruses.

sacred_numbers 5y ago

Clostridium botulinum is anaerobic, and live in soil, so living humans are not a particularly good host. Dead humans could be, though, so natural selection would favor strains that efficiently returned themselves and their descendants back to the soil.

croes 5y ago

Evolution doesn't need purpose. As long as a feature doesn't reduce the survival rate, it remains in place. The toxicity could just be a side effect of the spores durability and longevity.

aerostable_slug 5y ago
Exactly. See also, cats & sweet flavors: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4766556 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=476655... A defective gene resulted in No Big Deal to a very successful class of animals.

AlotOfReading 5y ago

C. Botulinum has a complicated life cycle that involves infecting vertebrates, killing them, and then infecting the invertebrates that feed on the body during decomposition. The bacteria don't particularly care about the host and just want it dead as quickly as possible so they can get on with their real hosts. [1] https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040 https://doi.org/10.1093/femspd/fty040

linspace 5y ago
What would be the role of the bacteria in a zombie invasion? Would it eat the zombies away or would it give them natural protection from predators? Both?
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  Botulinum toxins are paralytic, so they'd make very tame zombies. Fungi would take care of the rest pretty quickly.
  - jimworm 5y ago
    Its very close cousin tetanus toxin has the opposite effect, but would also cause zombies to be immobile all the same.
noisy_boy 5y ago
Might be interesting to know how vultures deal with this.
- Igelau 5y ago
  Nature's beautiful garbage disposal. Botulism. Anthrax. Vultures don't care.
- skywal_l 5y ago
  https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/25/366545524/how-can-vultures-eat-rotten-roadkill-and-survive https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2014/11/25/3665455... They are not sure as there are various hypotheses apparently: > He says vulture stomach acid is 10 to 100 times stronger than human stomach acid, "so it seems like the stomach itself is a very harsh environment." > "Another hypothesis could be that they're actually using the bacteria in the stomach as some sort of probiotics," Hansen says. By having a gut full of a few tolerable species of bacteria, it's possible that those would crowd out other deadly microbes.

CobrastanJorji 5y ago

I'm in no way a scientist, but it sounds like the bacteria grows best in oxygen-free, low acidity environments with a lot of protein: that's dead things. Paralyzing your host is a bad idea for diseases that will be permanently destroyed shortly after their host dies, but it's a pretty great plan if it creates a wonderful ecosystem free of pesky immune cells and oxygen for you to grow and produce spores that can happily sit around forever waiting for something to eat them.

lkrubner 5y ago

A pathogen's needs will, over time, converge with the needs of its host, but only if the pathogen is only able to survive in one species. When a pathogen is able to feed off of many species, its needs never converge with the needs of any particular host.

kragen 5y ago
Do you mean its needs for reproductive fitness? Only if it's transmitted only from parents to offspring.

catlikesshrimp 5y ago

I can't answer your question for C Botulinum. But many times we are just in the middle of warfare. That is, it is an accident we are harmed. For instance, Corynebacterium Diphtheriae is not lethal per se, but then comes a virus that infects the bacteria, and kills the bacteria, and a byproduct of the virus causes the bacteria to cause diphteria. The phage (the bacteria virus) provides no advantage to C diphteriae. My hypothesis for clostridiums, that includes C botulinum, is that they do want to kill their host, however. They kind of kill the planet they live in as they can thrive in the carcass while it lasts. So, deathly clostridiums have this at least short term advantage over non deathly ones. C. tetani, perfrigens, botulinum and difficile can all kill you. However, C. perfrigens does it differently, by diggesting you before killing you, "on the fly" or "just in time"