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Mutualism describes the ecological interaction between two or more species where each species has a net benefit. Mutualism is a common type of ecological interaction. Prominent examples are:
In biology, coevolution occurs when two or more species reciprocally affect each other's evolution through the process of natural selection. The term sometimes is used for two traits in the same species affecting each other's evolution, as well as gene-culture coevolution.
In ecology, a biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species, or of different species. These effects may be short-term, or long-term, both often strongly influence the adaptation and evolution of the species involved. Biological interactions range from mutualism, beneficial to both partners, to competition, harmful to both partners. Interactions can be direct when physical contact is established or indirect, through intermediaries such as shared resources, territories, ecological services, metabolic waste, toxins or growth inhibitors. This type of relationship can be shown by net effect based on individual effects on both organisms arising out of relationship.
Evolutionary ecology lies at the intersection of ecology and evolutionary biology. It approaches the study of ecology in a way that explicitly considers the evolutionary histories of species and the interactions between them. Conversely, it can be seen as an approach to the study of evolution that incorporates an understanding of the interactions between the species under consideration. The main subfields of evolutionary ecology are life history evolution, sociobiology, the evolution of interspecific interactions and the evolution of biodiversity and of ecological communities.
Parallel evolution is the similar development of a trait in distinct species that are not closely related, but share a similar original trait in response to similar evolutionary pressure.
The Prodoxidae are a family of moths, generally small in size and nondescript in appearance. They include species of moderate pest status, such as the currant shoot borer, and others of considerable ecological and evolutionary interest, such as various species of "yucca moths".
Myrmecophytes are plants that live in a mutualistic association with a colony of ants. There are over 100 different genera of myrmecophytes. These plants possess structural adaptations that provide ants with food and/or shelter. These specialized structures include domatia, food bodies, and extrafloral nectaries. In exchange for food and shelter, ants aid the myrmecophyte in pollination, seed dispersal, gathering of essential nutrients, and/or defense. Specifically, domatia adapted to ants may be called myrmecodomatia.
Entomophily or insect pollination is a form of pollination whereby pollen of plants, especially but not only of flowering plants, is distributed by insects. Flowers pollinated by insects typically advertise themselves with bright colours, sometimes with conspicuous patterns leading to rewards of pollen and nectar; they may also have an attractive scent which in some cases mimics insect pheromones. Insect pollinators such as bees have adaptations for their role, such as lapping or sucking mouthparts to take in nectar, and in some species also pollen baskets on their hind legs. This required the coevolution of insects and flowering plants in the development of pollination behaviour by the insects and pollination mechanisms by the flowers, benefiting both groups. Both the size and the density of a population are known to affect pollination and subsequent reproductive performance.
The ant–fungus mutualism is a symbiosis seen between certain ant and fungal species, in which ants actively cultivate fungus much like humans farm crops as a food source. There is only evidence of two instances in which this form of agriculture evolved in ants resulting in a dependence on fungi for food. These instances were the attine ants and some ants that are part of the Megalomyrmex genus. In some species, the ants and fungi are dependent on each other for survival. This type of codependency is prevalent among herbivores who rely on plant material for nutrition. The fungus’ ability to convert the plant material into a food source accessible to their host makes them the ideal partner. The leafcutter ant is a well-known example of this symbiosis. Leafcutter ants species can be found in southern South America up to the United States. However, ants are not the only ground-dwelling arthropods which have developed symbioses with fungi. A similar mutualism with fungi is also noted in termites within the subfamily Macrotermitinae which are widely distributed throughout the Old World tropics with the highest diversity in Africa.
Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries or nectarines, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and bats. Nectar plays a crucial role in the foraging economics and evolution of nectar-eating species; for example, nectar foraging behavior is largely responsible for the divergent evolution of the African honey bee, A. m. scutellata and the western honey bee.
In zoology, a nectarivore is an animal which derives its energy and nutrient requirements from a diet consisting mainly or exclusively of the sugar-rich nectar produced by flowering plants.
Ornithophily or bird pollination is the pollination of flowering plants by birds. This sometimes coevolutionary association is derived from insect pollination (entomophily) and is particularly well developed in some parts of the world, especially in the tropics, Southern Africa, and on some island chains. The association involves several distinctive plant adaptations forming a "pollination syndrome". The plants typically have colourful, often red, flowers with long tubular structures holding ample nectar and orientations of the stamen and stigma that ensure contact with the pollinator. Birds involved in ornithophily tend to be specialist nectarivores with brushy tongues and long bills, that are either capable of hovering flight or light enough to perch on the flower structures.
Myrmecophily is the term applied to positive interspecies associations between ants and a variety of other organisms, such as plants, other arthropods, and fungi. Myrmecophily refers to mutualistic associations with ants, though in its more general use, the term may also refer to commensal or even parasitic interactions.
Nectar robbing is a foraging behavior used by some organisms that feed on floral nectar, carried out by feeding from holes bitten in flowers, rather than by entering through the flowers' natural openings. Nectar robbers usually feed in this way, avoiding contact with the floral reproductive structures, and therefore do not facilitate plant reproduction via pollination. Because many species that act as pollinators also act as nectar robbers, nectar robbing is considered to be a form of exploitation of plant-pollinator mutualism. While there is variation in the dependency on nectar for robber species, most species rob facultatively.
Insect ecology is the interaction of insects, individually or as a community, with the surrounding environment or ecosystem.
Conservation is the maintenance of biological diversity. Conservation can focus on preserving diversity at genetic, species, community or whole ecosystem levels. This article will examine conservation at the species level, because mutualisms involve interactions between species. The ultimate goal of conservation at this level is to prevent the extinction of species. However, species conservation has the broader aim of maintaining the abundance and distribution of all species, not only those threatened with extinction. Determining the value of conserving particular species can be done through the use of evolutionary significant units, which essentially attempt to prioritise the conservation of the species which are rarest, fastest declining, and most distinct genotypically and phenotypically.
A nectar spur is a hollow extension of a part of a flower. The spur may arise from various parts of the flower: the sepals, petals, or hypanthium, and often contain tissues that secrete nectar (nectaries). Nectar spurs are present in many clades across the angiosperms, and are often cited as an example of convergent evolution.
Pedro Diego Jordano Barbudo is an ecologist, conservationist, researcher, focused on evolutionary ecology and ecological interactions. He is an honorary professor and associate professor at University of Sevilla, Spain. Most of his fieldwork is done in Parque Natural de las Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas, in the eastern side of Andalucia, and in Doñana National Park, where he holds the title of Research Professor for the Estación Biológica Doñana, Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC). Since 2000 he has been actively doing research in Brazil, with fieldwork in the SE Atlantic rainforest.
Robert A. Raguso is an American biologist and professor at Cornell University in the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior. He has expanded the field of chemical ecology by introducing and pioneering floral scent as a key component of plant-pollinator communication, with special focus on hawkmoths and Clarkia plants.
Plant-animal interactions are important pathways for the transfer of energy within ecosystems, where both advantageous and unfavorable interactions support ecosystem health. Plant-animal interactions can take on important ecological functions and manifest in a variety of combinations of favorable and unfavorable associations, for example predation, frugivory and herbivory, parasitism, and mutualism. Without mutualistic relationships, some plants may not be able to complete their life cycles, and the animals may starve due to resource deficiency.
References
- 1 2 3 4 "Judith Bronstein | Ecology & Evolutionary Biology". eeb.arizona.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
- ↑ Mutualism. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press. 2015-10-01. ISBN 978-0-19-967565-4.
- ↑ BRONSTEIN, JUDITH LEE (1986). COEVOLUTION AND CONSTRAINTS IN A NEOTROPICAL FIG - POLLINATOR WASP MUTUALISM (COSTA RICA) (Thesis). ProQuest 303488435.[ non-primary source needed ]
- ↑ "NSF-NATO Postdoctoral Fellowships for Scientists from NATO Partner Countries nsf02178". www.nsf.gov. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
- ↑ "Izaak Walton Killam & Grant Notley Memorial Postdoctoral Fellowships | Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research". www.ualberta.ca. Retrieved 2023-05-02.
- 1 2 3 "About Judie". Judith Bronstein. 2017-02-15. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
- ↑ Johnson, Christopher A.; Smith, Gordon P.; Yule, Kelsey; Davidowitz, Goggy; Bronstein, Judith L.; Ferrière, Régis (2021-05-17). "Coevolutionary transitions from antagonism to mutualism explained by the Co-Opted Antagonist Hypothesis". Nature Communications. 12 (1): 2867. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-23177-x. hdl: 20.500.11850/487436 . ISSN 2041-1723.
- ↑ Lichtenberg, Elinor M.; Irwin, Rebecca E.; Bronstein, Judith L. (2020-12-01). "Bumble bees are constant to nectar-robbing behaviour despite low switching costs". Animal Behaviour. 170: 177–188. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.09.008 . ISSN 0003-3472.
- ↑ "Nectar dynamics and the coexistence of two plants that share a pollinator". scholar.google.com. Retrieved 2023-04-25.
- ↑ Calixto, Eduardo Soares; Del‐Claro, Kleber; Lange, Denise; Bronstein, Judith (2023-03-28). "Time course of inducibility of indirect responses in an ant‐defended plant". Ecology: e4029. doi:10.1002/ecy.4029. ISSN 0012-9658.
- ↑ Calixto, Eduardo Soares; Lange, Denise; Bronstein, Judith; Torezan‐Silingardi, Helena Maura; Del‐Claro, Kleber (January 2021). Züst, Tobias (ed.). "Optimal Defense Theory in an ant–plant mutualism: Extrafloral nectar as an induced defence is maximized in the most valuable plant structures". Journal of Ecology. 109 (1): 167–178. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13457. hdl: 10150/647640 . ISSN 0022-0477.
