Why are diseases more communicable within a species (e.g. human-to-human) than intraspecies (e.g. bird-to-human)?

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Why are diseases more communicable within a species (e.g. human-to-human) than intraspecies (e.g. bird-to-human)?

In: Biology

6 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Think of organisms as being different media formats. You have a player that is designed to play a certain format and another that is designed for a different format. Let’s take record players for example. You have one that plays 33s and another that plays 45s. If you put the disk from one on the other it won’t sound right. This is sort of how parasites (viruses included) work. They have evolved to function in a specific environment provided by a specific set of hosts. They don’t tend to work all that well outside of their given chain of transmission. However, let’s say you have a mutation that causes your record player to have both 45s and 33 rpm speeds and now allows you to play records of both formats. You can now operate both formats…this is similar to how mutations of a parasite can jump across species. But let’s take it a bit further. Since the player was not originally designed to function with it, it sounds really bad when using the new format. It works, but in a really horrible fashion. In fact it not only sounds awful, but actively destroys the new format discs. This is similar to the reason new parasites can wreak havoc on a new host. They have not evolved to function together, and thus can be pretty virulent.

Anonymous 0 Comments

both humans and birds have immune systems designed to kill off invaders. So, to be a successful invader, you need to adapt to sneak past the immune defenses. Fortunately, for humans, most tricks that work to get past a bird’s defenses don’t work on a human.

Sadly, bats and monkeys are closer to humans, and so we tend to be susceptible to a few of their diseases.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Think of viruses like computer viruses. They exploit security holes. But a computer virus that works on Macs will have a hard time working on Windows.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Diseases are like Legos. Sometimes you can find a Duplo that will connect to a Lego but mostly not. Diseases connect to your cells through some mechanism that allows them to evade your immune system and connect, like a Lego to your cells. If you’re an Erector Set, a Lego disease means nothing to you, no way to connect. If you’re a cheap Lego knock off though you’re in trouble. Like the Lego/Duplo example though, there are sometimes diseases who’s “connection mechanism” crosses toy platforms, or species.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because bodies of different species work differently and a disease is ready to attack in a certain way which may not work on other species. Sometimes a species can be just a host in which a disease can survive but not reproduce

Anonymous 0 Comments

Think of it like a lock and key.

A virus’ proteins, for example, is a key and the host’s cell membranes have a specific lock. Sometimes, through chance mutation, the keys change to match the lock of host cell membrane allowing the virus to enter and replicate itself. The host is now infected.

So, the key that worked to get into the chicken’s cells now works to get into the human’s cells. It may also be that the virus possesses many keys.

This is how viruses and other pathogens can jump from animals to people.