• Question: why do we have bugs

    Asked by 07jonesa to Alastair, Emma, Hywel, Keith, Vicki on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Alastair Sloan

      Alastair Sloan answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi

      If you mean bacteria, then they are essential part of the natural make up of the environment. They are single celled organisms that have not evolved like us, but have evolved in their own way. The are very strong organisms who can live almost anywhere. Their function is to survive, just like us

    • Photo: Keith Brain

      Keith Brain answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      By bugs, I’m guessing you mean microorganisms, like bacteria and viruses, rather than the insects. Sorry if I’ve misunderstood.

      We have microorganisms (like bacteria) because they were here before us, and we haven’t gotten rid of them! Not that we’d really want to. While they can make us sick, they are also very important for all sorts of things – like rotting old plant material, making bread/yogurt/beer, and even helping to fix the greenhouse effect (if you include blue-green algae) – by fixing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.

      Some microorganisms are harmful (causing infections like pneumonia), and we try to get rid of them with antibiotics or antiviral drugs. I can only think of one microorganism that has been deliberately target by people and exterminated complete (at least in the wild …) – it’s actually a virus called Variola major (as well as its relative Variola minor) which caused a disease called Smallpox. In general, bacteria and viruses are very hard to get rid of complete, because they change so rapidly (called “genetic drift”): its hard to make a drug to specifically affect something that is always changing.

    • Photo: Vicki Stevenson

      Vicki Stevenson answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      I think bugs are necessary to complete “the circle of life”. We create waste while we live, and when we die our bodies need to be dealt with. If the waste never broke down, the earth would become increasingly nasty. Bugs make sure that all our natural wastes (and eventually ourselves) break down into components that can be reused.

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