THE NATURE OF ECOLOGY Ecology is a study of connections in nature. – How organisms interact with one another and with their nonliving environment. Figure 3-2
Dec 24, 2015
THE NATURE OF ECOLOGY
Ecology is a study of connections in nature.– How organisms
interact with one another and with their nonliving environment.
Figure 3-2
Ecologists recognize 5 major kinds of species interactions
in communities:Predation, Mutualism,
Commensalism, Competition, or Parasitism
Symbiosis
A symbiosis is a close, long term relationship between two organisms.– Commensalism– Parasitism– Mutualism
Commensalism
Commensalism is a relationship between two living organisms where one benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped.
The clownfish lives among the forest of tentacles of an anemone and is protected from potential predators.
Some birds live among cattle to eat the insects stirred up as they walk. One
example are egrets who hunt for insects near a grazing animal's mouth.
One animal attaching itself to another for transportation such as barnacles
attach to shells or whales; or a shrimp riding on a sea slugs.
barnacles on whale’s tail and clam shrimp riding on a sea slug
One species uses a second organism for housing such as small mammals or birds that lives in holes in trees or orchids which live in trees.
Orchid in rainforest Venezuela
Parasitism
One organism, usually physically smaller of the two (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed
Tapeworm or Hookworms living in Host's Gut
Algae and Fungi > Lichen - Alga gets water and nutrients from the fungus and the fungus gets food
from the algae.
Cleaners eat insect pests from the skin of animals. (ex: Egyptian plover cleans
giraffes and buffaloes)
Many herbivores such as cows, sheep, deer, horses and rabbits depend on bacteria that live in their stomachs to
break down the plant material.