Re: Extinction scenarios

[Betty Cunningham <bettyc@flyinggoat.com>]

So what about factors that are not dependant on the animal host such as
Histoplasmosis or Valley Fever, which are nice desease-like fungii?
Could these have a bearing on this discussion?  They aren't true
deseases in that a person inflicted with one (probably?) could not
transmit it.

All you would need in the cases of these is to drive a population into
an area seeded with the fungus.  It might not 'infect' every individual
but it could decimate a population undefended.

-Betty Cunningham

TomHopp@aol.com wrote:
>     Secondly, any organism that has perfected its ability to kill its host, by
> killing one hundred percent of its victims, does not prevail.  Rather, it
> becomes extinct itself, due to the inability to be spread from one host to the
> next (remember, the first host is dead).  There is, therefore, a selective
> pressure for inefficient killers to remain inefficient. Witness influenza and
> the common cold, which are still very much with us, while bubonic plague, a
> greater killer, is nearly extinct.