Riddled with Life by Marlene Zuk

This is a fascinating book about parasites, both those that cause human disease and those that affect animals and plants. The book was published in 2007 and so does not address the COVID-19 pandemic, but does offer warnings about the potential of avian flu to become a pandemic in humans. 

The book discusses the evolution of human disease and interesting topicss such as anti-biotic resistance and some approaches for warding off illness, but my particular interest (especially when writing a review for this blog) was in the parasites that affect non-human organisms. 

Parasites are everywhere and co-evolve with their hosts, often becoming less severe in their effects as time goes on. An interesting case study offered to show this is how myxomatosis declined in effectiveness at reducing the plagues of rabbits that caused havoc in Australia after they were introduced to the continent. At first all the bunnies dies once they were infected but soon 5% of infected rabbits were surviving, and continuing to cause problems for the native flora and fauna as well as for agriculturalists. 

Because disease is everywhere, animals have evolved ways of demonstrating their health to potential partners, this is a possible explanation for such seeming extravagances as the peacock's tail or the nightingale's song. A male who is able to put his energies into creating the most beautiful song or plumage is less likely to be hosting lots of parasites (the author details studies, some of which she was involved in herself, to show the correlations between birds' plumage, songs and other characteristics and parasite loads). Studies have also shown that some birds use aromatic herbs in their nests, to reduce the number of fleas living in the nest materials and that chimpanzees can rid themselves of intestinal parasites by ingesting particular types of leaves.

Into the future, climate change may make some parasites more dangerous as warmer temperatures make reproduction easier. This has already happened with a roundworm that infects the lungs of musk oxen as their arctic homelands become warmer, meaning that the roundworm that used to be relatively benign is now present in such numbers that it kills significant numbers of the oxen. 

This review just gives a very brief taste of the book, which is fascinating and well worth reading if you're interested in parasites and disease. However, some details are definitely not for the squeamish! 

Riddled with Life by Marlene Zuk, published (2007) by Harcourt Books.