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techstepgenr8tion
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08 Jan 2023, 9:55 pm
11 Jan 2023, 7:02 am
that is just amazing, thanks 
The consumption of viruses returns energy to food chains
Viruses impact host cells and have indirect effects on ecosystem processes. Plankton such as ciliates can reduce the abundance of virions in water, but whether virus consumption translates into demographic consequences for the grazers is unknown. Here, we show that small protists not only can consume viruses they also can grow and divide given only viruses to eat. Moreover, the ciliate Halteria sp. foraging on chloroviruses displays dynamics and interaction parameters that are similar to other microbial trophic interactions. These results suggest that the effect of viruses on ecosystems extends beyond (and in contrast to) the viral shunt by redirecting energy up food chains.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2215000120
13 Jan 2023, 1:53 pm
13 Jan 2023, 1:58 pm
Damn.
I read it as “first ever orgasm...”
I hate when that happens.
techstepgenr8tion
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13 Jan 2023, 2:29 pm
13 Jan 2023, 2:45 pm
naturalplastic wrote:
A protozoan, like a paramecium, eating a virus, is kinda like a human being chowing down on mosquitos.
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
well each pound of the whale is supported by 10,000 pounds of phytoplankton....if this kind of mismatched ratio works for the whales, why not for paramecium
13 Jan 2023, 7:03 pm
Chuckster wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
A protozoan, like a paramecium, eating a virus, is kinda like a human being chowing down on mosquitos.
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
well each pound of the whale is supported by 10,000 pounds of phytoplankton....if this kind of mismatched ratio works for the whales, why not for paramecium
But plankton are like grass to the bison. The Bison live a sea of it. Humans dont swim in a sea of mosquitos. And plankton dont live off of the whales. So its not a closed loop. In some cultures, like Mongol nomads, humans eat their own blood sucking lice. But they dont subsist upon them exclusively.
13 Jan 2023, 7:09 pm
techstepgenr8tion
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13 Jan 2023, 8:09 pm
14 Jan 2023, 4:31 am
naturalplastic wrote:
Chuckster wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
A protozoan, like a paramecium, eating a virus, is kinda like a human being chowing down on mosquitos.
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
The size ratio between a paramecium and a virus is at least as lopsided as that between a person and a mosquito. In neither case would the predator gain much nutrition from the diet.
And mosquitos are ectoparasites - they steal the blood from mammals (including humans). Like viruses are parasites onto larger critters (bacteria, protozoans, and multicelled plants and animals, including humans).
So it would kinda loop the energy and protein back into the food chain. But just think...how many hundreds of mosquitos you would have to capture in order to...mash them together to make them into a descent sized hamburger patty?
well each pound of the whale is supported by 10,000 pounds of phytoplankton....if this kind of mismatched ratio works for the whales, why not for paramecium
But plankton are like grass to the bison. The Bison live a sea of it. Humans dont swim in a sea of mosquitos. And plankton dont live off of the whales. So its not a closed loop. In some cultures, like Mongol nomads, humans eat their own blood sucking lice. But they dont subsist upon them exclusively.
I don't think it's the size of the pray that matters but the efficiency of digestion and what the pray is made of. Viruses contain amino acids, nucleic acids, and lipids, and (quoting that article) if consumed in sufficient quantities could influence the population dynamics of the species that consume them. The guy who discovered that they are virovors said also that “[Viruses are] made up of really good stuff: nucleic acids, a lot of nitrogen and phosphorous”
The number of chloroviruses was plummeting by as much as 100-fold in just two days. The population of Halteria, with nothing to eat but the virus, was growing an average of about 15 times larger over that same timespan. Halteria deprived of the chlorovirus, meanwhile, wasn't growing at all.
To confirm that the Halteria was actually consuming the virus, the team tagged some of the chlorovirus DNA with a fluorescent green dye before introducing the virus to the ciliates. Sure enough, the ciliate equivalent of a stomach, its vacuole, was soon glowing green.
DeLong wasn't done. The mathematical side of him wondered whether this particular predator-prey dynamic, as strange as it seemed, might share commonalities with the more pedestrian pairings he was accustomed to studying.
He started by charting the decline of the chlorovirus against the growth of the Halteria. That relationship, DeLong found, generally fits with those ecologists have observed among other microscopic hunters and their hunted. The Halteria also converted about 17% of the consumed chlorovirus mass into new mass of its own, right in line with percentages seen when Paramecia eat bacteria and millimeter-long crustaceans eat algae. Even the rate at which ciliates preyed on the virus, and the roughly 10,000-fold disparity in their sizes, match up with other aquatic case studies.
DeLong and his colleagues have since identified other ciliates that, like Halteria, can thrive by dining on viruses alone. The more they uncover, the more likely it seems that virovory could be occurring in the wild.
the whole process is explained here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 103521.htm
14 Jan 2023, 8:20 am
22 Jan 2023, 11:58 am
26 Feb 2023, 6:05 pm
