‘Crypt keeper’ wasps, and echolocating humans

Good morning everyone,

In the recent science news are articles related to several of the topics we have considered recently - this is a nice confirmation that our course topics are 'up-to-date'!

Early in the term we considered the behavior of parasitic wasps, that stun prey and then oviposit eggs within them so that their larvae have a ready food supply during early growth.  In the news this week is description of a different kind of parasitic wasp, one which parasitizes other wasps.

Here, the form of parasitism is less direct, in that the parasite deposits its eggs into the same plant gall that its host occupies.  The parasite larvae then can attack the host, and in doing so, they accomplish a form of behavioral and physiological 'hypermanipulation'.  Not only do they use the host tissues for their own nourishment, but they actually trigger a malformed version of the hosts normal escape behavior, which ensures that the host itself doesn't escape the gall but which provides the parasite an escape route.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/09/crypt-keeper-wasp-brainwashes-far-more-victims-thought
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/science/crypt-keeper-wasps-parasitic.html
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49692974

The degree to which parasites manipulate their hosts can be extraordinary.  We are used to thinking that parasites can make use of host tissues, but examples like this reveal more complicated interactions, with some parasites hijacking host behavior as well.  There are plenty of examples, such as these:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/10/141031-zombies-parasites-animals-science-halloween/

All are good reminders that host behavior, as well as host tissues, can be exploited by parasites. 


Even more recently, I sent you some information about humans who have developed some ability to perform echolocation.  Just this week came a report on this topic, suggesting real, functional remapping of the brain's visual cortex to support this new capability:

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/10/echolocation-blind-people-reveals-brain-s-adaptive-powers

At some level, neural plasticity is responsible for all that we can learn, but to have whole-scale re-functioning of a part of the brain from one sense to another is very impressive.


Have a good weekend -
Dr. Nealen