8 ms·
Butterflies Full of Wasps Full of Microwasps Are a Science Nightmare (2021)
- angst_ridden 3y ago“So, naturalists observe, a flea Has smaller fleas that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite ’em; And so proceed ad infinitum.” — Swift
- yawnxyz 3y ago> Wolbachia pipientis increases the susceptibility of the parasitic wasp to being taken over by the tiny parasitic wasp M. stigmaticus, which can only live on the H. horticola wasp Wolbachia / host interactions is wild. Phages in Wolbachia are selecting for which of their hosts get to be parents or not: https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adk9469 https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.adk9469
- nxobject 3y agoPosted prior in 2021, but thought it deserved a little more attention due to HN’s recent biology kick.
- 082349872349872 3y agosee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siphonaptera_(poem) (yes, the De Morgan)
- justinator 3y agoA wasp in a wasp in a butterfly? Yes, but how does it taste?
- dynisor 3y agoMaybe like figs[1] [1] https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/fig_wasp.shtml https://www.fs.usda.gov/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-o...
- nvch 3y agoLike butterflies in the stomach?
- hsjsbeebue 3y agoWell “it” becomes you and “taste buds” are the microwasps.
- Perenti 3y ago. Butterfly, Butterfly Your name should be Flutterby. Lest others discover, You don't contain butter, In fact you taste like shit.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- acquacow 3y ago>Living inside some of these small wasps was another even tinier, rarer parasite, a “hyperparasitoid” wasp known as Mesochorus cf. stigmaticus. It kills the parasitic wasp around the same time as the wasp kills the caterpillar, and emerges 10 days later from the caterpillar’s carcass. That's so metal...
- verisimi 3y ago[flagged]
- prmoustache 3y agoI would be that parastitic wasp, I would be afraid and even tinier one is ready to kill me right after I also kill the bigger one. How do you know which one is the last!
- HansHamster 3y agoIt's t̶u̶r̶t̶l̶e̶s̶ wasps all the way down!
- heyalexej 3y ago- How matryoshka do you want to parasite? - Yes!
- binary132 3y agoMaximum call stack depth exceeded.
- keepamovin 3y agoA reminder to humans who want to undertake ecosystem engineering projects: we don't know what we're doing.
- salesynerd 3y agoVery true. I guess the challenge is to balance, if it's at all possible, the needs of humans and/or other species with that of the overall ecosystem. For example, in India there is a massive program underway to connect the various rivers across the country to alleviate drinking water shortages and increase the use of inland waterways for transportation. However, the net ecological impact of the program is not known. I doubt it is possible to really calculate, in advance, the impact of such programs.
- keepamovin 3y agoExactly! Caution is required because the ecosystem is not modelable from our current understanding :)
- titzer 3y agoIndeed. Our intentional ecosystem engineering is probably dwarfed by our unintentional transportation of invasive species and infectious diseases, going back centuries. And about zero of that seems to have led to a net increase in biodiversity--in short, we're stumbling about spreading destruction whereever we go.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoWe don't, and I don't bring up the following to excuse humanity for our destruction of other species, but it's still just an interesting philosophical point to consider. We're as much a part of the circle of life and evolution as all the organisms that came before us. I mean, you think we're bad for other species, just think about cyanobacteria, which in their thirst for energy polluted the atmosphere with an extremely toxic gas that caused one of Earth's major extinction events. Of course, that gas was molecular oxygen, and eventually other organisms evolved aerobic respiration, and that toxic gas is now required by many of Earth's organisms to survive. Now, that change took a billion years or so, as opposed to humans doubling CO2 concentrations in a couple hundred years, but it's still interesting to think about the crazy history of life on Earth.
- foobarian 3y ago100 million years later and they are mitochondria inside a cell inside a large animal...
- chasil 3y ago“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Hamlet, 1.5. 165–66).
- gepoch 3y agoGreat fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum. And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
- hsjsbeebue 3y agoLike the recursive game of life?
- staplung 3y agoThe Vermin only teaze and pinch Their Foes superior by an Inch. So, Nat'ralists observe, a Flea Hath smaller Fleas that on him prey, And these have smaller yet to bite 'em, And so proceed ad infinitum: Thus ev'ry [Poster], in his Kind Is bit by him that comes behind. ;)
- mock-possum 3y agoI like the way this one flows better.
- flir 3y agoIambic tetrameter. Lub-dub, lub-dub.
- bee_rider 3y agoParasitic wasps are horrible nightmare creatures. I don’t know what to think about parasitic wasps that prey on other parasitic wasps. I think in this case the enemy of my enemy is still disgusting.
- jader201 3y agoNo kidding. Too bad it wasn’t parasitic butterflies (larva) from the parasitic wasps. That would’ve been epic.
- blarg1 3y agoI saw a youtube video the other day about how a wasp sting infects the caterpillar with a virus to modify its behaviour and stop it from turning into a butterfly.
- xipho 3y agoSeeing a large palm caterpillar seemingly OK at one moment, turning your head, and looking back to see it completely deflated as if a baloon, black goo oozing out, with upwards of 40 larvae anchored to it and spinning their heads around as they create cocoons is seriously eye opening. Perhaps the most hyper-diverse group of animals in the world are the chalcid or jewel wasps. They don't sting, they lay their eggs in others, including others eggs (some eggs of things so small they were only recently proven to be the hosts), as parasitoids (things that kill their hosts). They are everywhere, it's trivial to catch them on any front lawn with the right techniques, yet the vast majority of people would never know they are there. The broader lineage include some species smaller than the largest amoebas. If you want to see ecology in a nutshell look at fig wasps, absolutely insane, soldier-like males, blind, wingless, ant-like males of other species, variable length ovipositors that let them exploit all different micro-micro areas of a fig. Multiple inter-dependent species on one species of Fig? Sure, why not. It goes on ad-nauseam. https://chalcid.org/ https://chalcid.org/ for a classic picture in our field.
- westmeal 3y agoBig Fig Wasps! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql5_q_33wqY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql5_q_33wqY
- hn_throwaway_99 3y agoWow, I didn't know about the fig wasps before. Beyond crazy cool! That level of coevolution is just so neat to me.
- animal_spirits 3y agoThere's a free documentary on Youtube called "The Queen of Trees" which goes over the lifecycle of an African Sycamore Fig Tree and follows the crazy amount of life that it supports over a year, including the lifecycle of the sycamore fig wasp. It's unbelievable, and deserves a watch by all who are interested in ecology. https://youtu.be/xy86ak2fQJM?si=CVL23tMUSEa28aBr https://youtu.be/xy86ak2fQJM?si=CVL23tMUSEa28aBr
- _0ffh 3y ago
- Modified3019 3y ago>But the tiny parasitic wasp H. horticola appears to have been able to fly or at least to be lifted by strong winds to move between islands on the Åland archipelago When I did agronomy work in Kansas, there were some pests like aphids (and fungal diseases) that are normally unable to overwinter. Somehow they get blown up high into the air and moved around by jet streams to be dropped hundreds of miles north, where they can become an economic pest but not technically able to complete their life cycle into the next year. This especially works well with aphids, as part of their lifecycle is making clones of themselves, so just one is needed to cause a local infestation. Often these carry viruses, and the initial effect is random spots of disease showing up in the middle of a field. For pests that migrate under wing power, they tend to initially establish on field edges first and slowly move in. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168192306001407 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01681...
- nivertech 3y agoA simple explanation is that these wasps and microwasps were originally the same species, but due to variation (e.g. size or digestion), the larger ones evolved to bite their host, while the smaller ones for some reasons could not feed on the host, so they left with the only option to cannibalize on their former relatives. Now we speed up the simulation, and after millions of time steps they will become agents of a different species. BTW: are there any foundational ABM[1] models that explain how free-living species become symbiotic, parasitic, or ectoparasitic? --- [1] Agent-based Modeling
- TheGrkIntrprtr 3y ago“Charles Darwin found the example of the Ichneumonidae so troubling that it contributed to his increasing doubts about the nature and existence of a Creator” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonidae https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumonidae
- Liquix 3y ago“I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars.” - Darwin
- mrguyorama 3y agoI've never understood this argument. Abrahamic god is pretty clearly okay with suffering and torture and murder. He was pretty clear to certain tribes of jews that they should murder certain other tribes of jews, and if you are islamic, he is very clear you should kill nonbelievers, to the point of full scale war. God also gave mankind "dominion" over animals, up to and including murdering them for food, so killing something for food has significant "Okay" precedent. God does not limit suffering people or animals experience. He has the utmost ability to do exactly that if he wanted, but seemingly he has taken a hands off approach, at least since about the 1600s. I guess he's not that bothered by immense suffering. And why should he be? He made us in his image, whatever that's supposed to mean, but we also are not meant to understand his ways. Why would such a supernatural being care about the suffering of some toy creatures he made? Do you feel bad when you play action figures and one of them drowns?
- bspammer 3y agoThe full letter that this is quoted from is available here, it's wonderful writing (3rd and 4th paragraph): https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/DCP-LETT-2814.xml I have to admit I've never read any Darwin before, but in those 2 paragraphs he completely summarizes my feelings about the natural world.
- gattr 3y agoI remember reading somewhere that the Tierra ecosystem/evolutionary simulation ([1]) readily produced such higher-order parasites of parasites. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_(computer_simulation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tierra_(computer_simulation)
- flir 3y agoInteresting. From what I remember, the parasites that evolved in Tierra resembled viruses. Tierra had a downward-pressure on organism size (the bigger you are, the longer it takes to make a copy of yourself), so organisms evolved that jettisoned their own replication mechanism and relied on pirating the mechanism of another. I wonder what the advantage of being a parasite of a parasite is in that environment.
- Sharlin 3y agoThe hyperparasites in Tierra are strictly speaking not parasites of parasites, rather they’re host "species" that evolved a resistance against some parasite types and, critically, a trick that causes the parasite to actually make a copy of its host when it tries to copy itself using the host’s replication code. So essentially the hyperparasite steals the parasite’s CPU time and still has its own timeslice left to replicate itself. The whole thing relies on the fact that the Tierra "organisms" live in a flat memory space where you can jump anywhere, including into the middle of other individuals, and just merrily keep executing code from that point. I wonder if something like that was possible in the (hypothetical) RNA world, before cell membranes developed, but I don’t think cell-based life can have a precise equivalent of Tierra hyperparasites. The closest analogue is probably mutualistic relationships that have evolved from parasitic ones.
- ixxie 3y agoMore interesting than the wasps: the group working with butterflies on these islands have been working Metacommunity ecology: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacommunity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metacommunity
- pfdietz 3y agoI'm going to turn this around and suggest introducing a species without its parasites is not a good idea. That's how you get invasive species that spread out of control. Then you have to go find those parasites and pathogens and deliberately introduce them.
- johan_larson 3y agoYo dawg, I heard you like parasites, so I put wasps in your wasps so they can parasitize while they're parasitized.