Types of Species Interactions

 Introduction

Have you ever wondered how different species benefit each other in an environment? Or how they harm each other? Or even how they don't have an effect at all on each other? Well that's what I am going to be talking about in this blog. We interact with different species all of the time. There are many types of interactions that affect an environment's food chain, biodiversity, and its whole way of life. All species interactions have 3 possible outcomes. They can either be negative, neutral, or positive. They can either benefit one another, harm one another, or have no effect at all on the species. 

Competition

The first type of interaction that is very common between species is competition. Competition is an interaction in which birth, growth, and death depend on gaining a share of an environmental resource. It's an interaction of organisms that lead to a change in fitness when the organisms share the same resource.  There are also three main forms of competition. The first type of competition is interference competition. This form of competition is when an organism directly alters the resource. The second type of competition is called exploitation. Exploitation and interference competition both are categorized as real competition. Exploitation occurs when individuals interact indirectly as they compete for resources(such as territory, prey, or food). An example of this is when a large plant species shades out smaller plants, which reduces the amount of sunlight the smaller plants can obtain their essential resource to grow. The last type of competition is apparent competition. Apparent competition occurs when two individuals that do not directly compete for resources affect each other by being prey to the same predator. So, this isn't exactly categorized as real competition. An example of this is a hawk that preys both on squirrels and mice. If the squirrel population increased, than the mice could benefit since more squirrels would be prey. But also, an increased squirrel population can lead to an increased hawk population, which would lead to the need of more prey; harming the mice. 

Predation and Herbivory

Predation and herbivory is when individuals of one population, kills and consumes and individual of another population. This is when one species benefits at the expense of another. In this interaction, the population size of predators and prey are not constant. Defense mechanisms are also used which is when an individual uses a heritable characteristic to evade its predators. These can be physical, mechanical, chemical, and behavioral. So what is the difference between these two interactions? Predation is when one individual(the predator) kills and eats another individual(prey). Herbivory is when an individual feeds a photosynthetic organism. One main difference between these two is the herbivory doesn't always kill an organism. 


Mutualism

The next type of species interaction that I am going to talk about is mutualism. Mutualism involves interactions that have a positive interaction on both species. An example of mutualism is goby fish and shrimp. The shrimp maintains a burrow in which the fish and the shrimp live in. When a predator passes, the fish will touch the shrimp with its tail to warn the shrimp of the predator. From this, both species benefit because the shrimp gets a warning from predators and the fish gets a place to live and lay eggs. Another common example is a bee getting pollen from a flower. This benefits the bee and the flower because this helps the flower reproduce. 


Commensalism

Another type of species interactions is commensalism. Commensalism involves interactions that have a positive effect on a species and a neutral effect on the other species. One species is benefited and the other was neither benefited or harmed. Commensalism can be difficult to detect because the species that benefits, can have indirect effects on the other species that may not be noticeable. An example of commensalism, is when a mite attaches themself to a larger flying insect. The mite is benefiting while the larger flying insect is neither harmed or benefited. 

Amensalism

The next type of species interactions is amensalism. Amensalism involves interactions that have a negative effect on a species and a neutral effect on the other species. The outcome is that one is harmed and the other is neither benefited or harmed. An example of amensalism is when a cow tramples on grass and the grass is crushed. The grass is harmed in this situation while the cow is neither benefited or harmed.

Parasitism 

The last type of species interactions is parasitism. Parasitism has a negative effect on a species and positive effect on the other species. Have you ever had a little mosquito bite? Or even a tick attached to you? Well that is parasitism. Parasitism normally involves a parasite harming a host. Parasites can either be endoparasites or ectoparasites. Endoparasites are found within the host body. Ectoparasites are found outside of the body like a tick.  


Conclusion

All of these types of species interactions shows just how much species interact with each other. These interactions can be close and long term. Species interact with each other everyday, and it's important to know all of the different types of relationships there are. They are all around us without us even noticing. Whether you know it or not we interact with different species all of the time. 

References

1. Lang Jennifer(2013). Species Interactions and Competition. The Nature Education. https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/species-interactions-and-competition-102131429/

2. The editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, Adam Augustyn. Ammensalism. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/science/predation

3. 2016. Symbiotic Relationships(Mutualism, Commensalism, and parasitism). cK-12. https://www.ck12.org/book/cbse_biology_book_class_xii/section/17.2/


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