Host Defenses
Hosts respond to parasitisms in many ways ranging from the morphological to the behavioural. In some cases, plants produce toxins to deter parasitic fungi and bacteria. Vertebrate animals have developed complex immune systems, which can target parasites through contact with bodily fluids. Animals are also known to resort to behavioral defenses, examples of which are the avoidance by sheep of open pastures during spring, when roundworm eggs accumulated over the previous year hatch en masse; and the ingestion of alcohol by infected fruit flies as self medication against blood-borne parasites. In humans, parasite immunity is developed prominently by Immunoglobulin E antibodies.
Read more about this topic: Parasitism
Famous quotes containing the words host and/or defenses:
“Think of the earth as a living organism that is being attacked by billions of bacteria whose numbers double every forty years. Either the host dies, or the virus dies, or both die.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defenses only of freedom. It is our children’s children who may perchance be really free.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)