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Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

nature.com

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Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#171

Post by klyrs »

shkkmo wrote: post #131
wpietri wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they were suggesting that causality could run the other way.

That wild cats infected humans so that humans would develope agriculture that would attract rodents for the cats to eat? That hypothesis doesn't seem very plausible...

Cat infects human A, who feeds cat in a fit of unprecedented affection. Human B sees another human with a cat and wants to be their friend. Repeat until cat friend puddle is too large for local flora to sustain. Human Z invents agriculture, attracting rats. I'm not sure this is terribly plausible, but I do have a cat on my lap.

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#172

Post by JoeyBananas »

californiadreem wrote: post #38
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #3

Imagine how dystopian that would sound in humans, like some science fiction horror. "All the leaders are secretly infected by parasites". Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.

"There's a secret cabal of beings that are making my life personally miserable" is already a common enough position that cyclically occurs in human history every hundred years or so that I don't think it's a fiction. I don't think it's an untenable premise to suspect that toxoplasmosis pandemics are cyclically-occuring in humans already and are responsible for revolutionary periods and/or imperialism. What people mig…

You should go on Joe Rogan podcast and give a lecture on this theory

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#173

Post by Trouble_007 »

the_af wrote: post #159
Trouble_007 wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I reiterate; Toxoplasma gondii : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii Risk factors for human infection : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#Immune_respo...

Before, you linked to another article about wolves which was basically the same article that is linked at the top of this thread. So "also, Grey Wolves" -- the "also" is redundant, since it's about the same wolves both times, and the finding is the same.

Link to * * Comments * * Which is what I posted [ 1 day ago - 5 comments ]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581

Which is related to the Link of the actual Article;

  *Grey wolves infected with this parasite are more likely to become pack leaders*

 : https://abcnews.go.com/US/grey-wolves-infected-parasite-become-pack-leaders-scientists/story?id=93487254

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#174

Post by yesbut »

msrenee wrote: post #115
yesbut wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Managers, like politicians, should have term limits. The temptation for abuse and favoritism is too strong.

I agree with you for the most part, but what happens when you've got a damn good manager? They exist for sure. They're just unfortunately a minority.

Then they should share their knowledge with the rest of us and produce more good managers.

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#175

Post by tgv »

freeflight wrote: post #162
tgv wrote: post #11

I don't see anything in that article that makes the conclusion inevitable. It's a remarkable correlation for sure, but unfortunately it doesn't go beyond that. There's no pathway from infection to leadership (just a vague hypothesis that doesn't resemble the mechanism in rats and hyenas), and it doesn't look as if they looked at uninfected pack leaders. Perhaps pack leaders or strays eat more dead cat, or some other…

> Perhaps they sampled in the wrong time frame. The full article might have more info, but the linked one doesn't. The data was collected over nearly 27 years, the link to the full open access paper is in the references; https://doi.org/10.1038%2Fs42003-022-04122-0

The abstract alone already provides fodder against the pack-leader hypothesis: animals in a cougar domain are more likely to get T.gondii, and it might have altered the cougar's behavior instead, which would be more in line with the proposed mechanism behind rat and hyena behavior modification. And I think the only one that's got more decisive evidence is the one where the rodent becomes less afraid of a cat's smell.

Not saying it can't be the case. But the linked article is bad (ok, I should have seen that coming), and there's a lot left to disprove before the conclusion can be drawn. Yet the reactions already want to test politicians for infection, as if there were no leaders before cats were commonplace, and as if it isn't known to be bad for pregnancy.

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#177

Post by jokoon »

goodpoint wrote: post #84
jonplackett wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by that? I thought it was a pretty accepted/normal thing for wolves to have a pack leader?

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females.... https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/

Exactly.

Once one can accept to take a step back, ask questions and maybe understand that politics and culture can often shape our perception of how things work, that's when it becomes possible to observe with a fresh look.

I often have tried to criticize the myth of the alpha male, but I often crash into people who seem so entrenched in their own normed vision of the world.

Please read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation

It's pretty eye opening, it goes beyond conservative politics. It explains how people want to believe dominance is a real thing.

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#178

Post by tonis2 »

"11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders — often the only wolves in the pack that breed."

Wouldnt it be highly preferable, from the parasites side of evolution, that only the males, that have parasite infection will be able to breed ?

Toxoplasma trying to create their own empire probably.

Re: Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders

#180

Post by the_af »

Trouble_007 wrote: post #173
the_af wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before, you linked to another article about wolves which was basically the same article that is linked at the top of this thread. So "also, Grey Wolves" -- the "also" is redundant, since it's about the same wolves both times, and the finding is the same.

Link to * * Comments * * Which is what I posted [ 1 day ago - 5 comments ]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581 Which is related to the Link of the actual Article; *Grey wolves infected with this parasite are more likely to become pack leaders* : https://abcnews.go.com/US/grey-wolves-infected-parasite-become-pack-leaders-scientists/story?id=93487254

I'm sorry, I truly don't follow what you're trying to say. What does the "also" mean, it's always the same story! There's no additional information, it's always about the same study about the same parasite on the same group of wolves!

I'm not pulling your leg, I truly don't follow your point.

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