why do viruses move between species sometimes and other times not?
In: 1
It is in an organism’s best interest to define a niche for itself. That’s what saved the small mammals from being killed with the dinosaurs, they had a niche. The same thing applies to microbes, it’s really great if you have a niche host, that way you can be well suited to that host and increase your chances of survival. Sometimes not having a niche host/ specific host will increase your survival, but it comes at a cost of not being well adapted to your host. Being able to move between species can be advantageous should it happen that one of them dies out, you still have other hosts. I guess it all depends on the needs of the virus and whatever stress it happens to be under.
Latest Answers