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Why Archaea Are Limited in Their Exploitation of Other, Living Organisms

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Biocommunication of Archaea

Abstract

Only a handful of Archaea have been suggested to be connected with pathologies or to serve as parasites, and none conclusively. Here I consider what might limit the potential for Archaea to serve as exploiters of other, living organisms. I suggest that this dearth may be a consequence of multiple factors which have a combined impact rather than any one factor serving as a ‘smoking gun’. These factors should be viewed as hypotheses, further exploration of which may be helpful towards refinement of considerations of just what may serve to limit the occurrence of Archaea serving as pathogens. I suggest as well that a spectrum likely exists in which eukaryotes—among the three cellular domains—are most frequently exploitive of other species while Archaea are the least. Bacteria, when serving especially as pathogens but also as predators, in turn display an intermediate propensity to exploit other organisms.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to John Reeve for both introducing me to the issue of rarity of pathogens among Archaea and also for helpful discussion of the ideas presented in this and a previously published essay on this subject.

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  1. Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Mansfield, OH, 44906, USA

    Stephen T. Abedon

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  1. Telos-Philosophische Praxis, Bürmoos, Salzburg, Austria

    Guenther Witzany

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Abedon, S.T. (2017). Why Archaea Are Limited in Their Exploitation of Other, Living Organisms. In: Witzany, G. (eds) Biocommunication of Archaea. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65536-9_4

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