On 15/09/2011 03:38 AM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
> On 9/14/2011 6:24 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> Are fungi poisonous on purpose, or is it just a side-effect of their
>> unusual body chemistry?
>
> Nothing is "poisonous on purpose", everything is a side-effect of
> different body chemistry. It just happens that, in some cases, those
> side effects make them a lot bloody harder for other things to eat.

OK, but consider this: The venom of the Black Widow spider is "designed" 
to be lethal to insects - and indeed it is. To mammals, it's harmless. 
It has no effect on dogs, cats, mice... oh, but by freak coincidence, it 
happens to be deadly to humans. How unlikely is that?

Point being, humans aren't the target. It just happens to work on them. 
Insects are the target.

> In
> the case of Fungi, however, it may also lend itself to death near the
> fungi, and this more nutrients, or it might have a similar effect on
> other fungi, which are in competition, and just, by coincidence, happen
> to effect humans, and animals. Most often, the effected species are
> insects. Thus, anything that, for example, has a nervous system, is
> likely to have the unfortunate coincidence of also being harmed by
> something that originally only was lethal to insects.

You're aware that insects have an utterly different nervous system to 
mammals, right?

For example, permethrin is a lethal fast-acting nerve toxin... to 
insects. To mammals it's almost completely harmless. (Except cats, 
randomly.)

> As Darwin said, "No adaptation is ever for the explicit benefit, or
> harm, of another species. It can only benefit the species that has it,
> any effect it has on other species is happenstance."

Well, yes, to a degree that's true. It's also clear that, for example, 
snake venom is "obviously" designed to kill the things that snakes eat. 
I'm just wondering whether fungi deliberately manufacture substances for 
no other reason than to prevent them being eaten, or whether the stuff 
that makes them so poisonous is just a normal part of their internal 
chemistry.

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