What came first: Viruses or their hosts?

Question

Smallpox has been around forever; poxes generally even longer and they have infected everything from dolphins to grasshoppers with variations own individual strains.

Pox has such a massive DNA make-up at somepoint, could it have been the dominant species on the planet

As it can transmutate to just about any new host species, forever jumping to avoid eradication could it be that the pox actually predates everything else?

Could it be the reason for it's ability to jump so successfully is because it has in its' overall lifetime met everything further down the evolutionary order so it has a genetic memory making it easier to stick in the new host?

Answer 1

It is very quickly apparent from sequence studies that there can have been no single origin of viruses as organisms. For instance, there is no obvious way one can relate viruses of the size and complexity of the Poxviridae [double-stranded linear DNA,130-375 kb, 150-300 genes] with viruses like the tobamoviruses [ss linear RNA, 6-7 kb, 4 genes], or either of these with the Geminiviridae [ss circular DNA, 2.7 - 5.4 kb, 3-7 genes]. Thus, there can be no simple "family tree" for viruses; rather, their evolutionary descent must resemble a number of scattered "bushes". Viruses as a class of organism must be therefore be considered to be polyphyletic in origins: that is, having a number of independent origins, almost certainly at different times, usually from cellular organisms.

Answer 2

Both came at the same time. The compatibility is the issue that needs to be addressed. The hosts are categorised into either carrier or just the host. How successful the virus strain can attack the host depend on the susceptibility of the host at that instant of time. The fact that the carrier is always around to carry the particular strain if virus down the generations is suggestive to smallpox has been around all these while. Microorganisms have the capability of DNA mutation which, after a while they can adapt to any extreme changes in the environment. Virus could be in the state of dormant in the form of spores. When changes occur in the environment which are suitable for them to be productive state again, they are back into action.

Answer 3

The origins of modern viruses are not entirely clear, and there may not be a single mechanism of origin that can account for all viruses. As viruses do not fossilise well, molecular techniques have been the most useful means of hypothesising how they arose. Research in microfossil identification and molecular biology may yet discern fossil evidence dating to the Archean or Proterozoic eons. Two main hypotheses currently exist:

* Small viruses with only a few genes may be runaway stretches of nucleic acid originating from the genome of a living organism. Their genetic material could have been derived from transferable genetic elements such as plasmids or transposons, which are prone to moving around, exiting, and entering genomes.

* Viruses with larger genomes, such as poxviruses, may have once been small cells which parasitised larger host cells. Over time, genes not required by their parasitic lifestyle would have been lost in a streamlining process known as retrograde- or reverse-evolution. Both the bacteria Rickettsia and Chlamydia are living cells which, like viruses, can only reproduce inside host cells. They lend credence to this hypothesis, as they are likely to have lost genes which enabled them to survive outside a host cell in favour of their parasitic lifestyle.

Other infectious particles which are even simpler in structure than viruses include viroids, satellites, and prions.

Answer 4

I think the answer is pretty obvious don't you. Viruses require the host for replication. Its like saying "which came first, the jumbo jet or the factory that makes it?"

Small pox was the first and only communicable disease completely wiped out through vaccination. The only remaining stocks are in the hands of the military in psycho nations like the US and Russia.

Answer 5

I would imagine a host. But, then again, if evil truly exists then the virus could be the evil and jump from host to host that is most accepting environmentally. I know I just took this from a scientific viewpoint to a more spiritual level, but I don't think you can rule this out.

Answer 6

They have now realized that viruses have been on this planet for billions of years.Such viruses have the ability to lie dormant,in a state of pause,that can last indefinitely until the right host comes along.The aids virus supposedly laid dormant for hundreds of millions of years,until it came across the perfect host to live in once more.Humans.They are known to be the smallest living creatures on this planet...tom science

Answer 7

The host obviously camer first. Where would the virus evoluate then? It just have an large ecological amplitude, so it is able to withstand changing conditions. In this instance the host. But initially it must have had a host to develop. back to basics

Answer 8

the host. 1. the host can exist without the virus. 2. the simplicity of the virus is not sign of being primitive/old organism - right on the contrary, it is simplified, reduced, adapted, "young" in evolutionary terms.

Answer 9

The chicken!