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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.
An ecosystem engineer is any species that creates, significantly modifies, maintains or destroys a habitat. These organisms can have a large impact on species richness and landscape-level heterogeneity of an area. As a result, ecosystem engineers are important for maintaining the health and stability of the environment they are living in. Since all organisms impact the environment they live in one way or another, it has been proposed that the term "ecosystem engineers" be used only for keystone species whose behavior very strongly affects other organisms.
The Thermodesulfobacteriota are a phylum of thermophilic sulfate-reducing bacteria. They are a gram-negative bacteria. [1]
In ecology, the foundation species are species that have a strong role in structuring a community. A foundation species can occupy any trophic level in a food web. The term was coined by Paul K. Dayton in 1972, who applied it to certain members of marine invertebrate and algae communities. It was clear from studies in several locations that there were a small handful of species whose activities had a disproportionate effect on the rest of the marine community and they were therefore key to the resilience of the community. Dayton’s view was that focusing on foundation species would allow for a simplified approach to more rapidly understand how a community as a whole would react to disturbances, such as pollution, instead of attempting the extremely difficult task of tracking the responses of all community members simultaneously. The term has since been applied to a range of organisms in ecosystems around the world, in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Aaron Ellison et al. introduced the term to terrestrial ecology by applying the term foundation species to tree species that define and structure certain forest ecosystems through their influences on associated organisms and modulation of ecosystem processes.
Ecological facilitation or probiosis describes species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither. Facilitations can be categorized as mutualisms, in which both species benefit, or commensalisms, in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected. This article addresses both the mechanisms of facilitation and the increasing information available concerning the impacts of facilitation on community ecology.
Intertidal ecology is the study of intertidal ecosystems, where organisms live between the low and high tide lines. At low tide, the intertidal is exposed whereas at high tide, the intertidal is underwater. Intertidal ecologists therefore study the interactions between intertidal organisms and their environment, as well as between different species of intertidal organisms within a particular intertidal community. The most important environmental and species interactions may vary based on the type of intertidal community being studied, the broadest of classifications being based on substrates—rocky shore and soft bottom communities.
Soil ecology studies interactions among soil organisms, and their environment. It is particularly concerned with the cycling of nutrients, soil aggregate formation and soil biodiversity.
A copiotroph is an organism found in environments rich in nutrients, particularly carbon. They are the opposite to oligotrophs, which survive in much lower carbon concentrations.
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization".
Plant ecology is a subdiscipline of ecology that studies the distribution and abundance of plants, the effects of environmental factors upon the abundance of plants, and the interactions among plants and between plants and other organisms. Examples of these are the distribution of temperate deciduous forests in North America, the effects of drought or flooding upon plant survival, and competition among desert plants for water, or effects of herds of grazing animals upon the composition of grasslands.
In ecology, a priority effect refers to the impact that a particular species can have on community development as a result of its prior arrival at a site. There are two basic types of priority effects: inhibitory and facilitative. An inhibitory priority effect occurs when a species that arrives first at a site negatively affects a species that arrives later by reducing the availability of space or resources. In contrast, a facilitative priority effect occurs when a species that arrives first at a site alters abiotic or biotic conditions in ways that positively affect a species that arrives later. Inhibitory priority effects have been documented more frequently than facilitative priority effects. Studies indicate that both abiotic and biotic factors can affect the strength of priority effects.. Priority effects are a central and pervasive element of ecological community development that have significant implications for natural systems and ecological restoration efforts.
A mycorrhizal network is an underground network found in forests and other plant communities, created by the hyphae of mycorrhizal fungi joining with plant roots. This network connects individual plants together. Mycorrhizal relationships are most commonly mutualistic, with both partners benefiting, but can be commensal or parasitic, and a single partnership may change between any of the three types of symbiosis at different times.
The root microbiome is the dynamic community of microorganisms associated with plant roots. Because they are rich in a variety of carbon compounds, plant roots provide unique environments for a diverse assemblage of soil microorganisms, including bacteria, fungi, and archaea. The microbial communities inside the root and in the rhizosphere are distinct from each other, and from the microbial communities of bulk soil, although there is some overlap in species composition.
Alien species, or species that are not native, invade habitats and alter ecosystems around the world. Invasive species are only considered invasive if they are able to survive and sustain themselves in their new environment. A habitat and the environment around it has natural flaws that make them vulnerable to invasive species. The level of vulnerability of a habitat to invasions from outside species is defined as its invasibility. One must be careful not to get this confused with invasiveness, which relates to the species itself and its ability to invade an ecosystem.
Nurse plants are plants that serve the ecological role of helping seedlings establish themselves and protecting young plants from harsh conditions. This effect is particularly well studied among plant communities in xeric environments.
Since the colonization of land by ancestral plant lineages 450 million years ago, plants and their associated microbes have been interacting with each other, forming an assemblage of species that is often referred to as a holobiont. Selective pressure acting on holobiont components has likely shaped plant-associated microbial communities and selected for host-adapted microorganisms that impact plant fitness. However, the high microbial densities detected on plant tissues, together with the fast generation time of microbes and their more ancient origin compared to their host, suggest that microbe-microbe interactions are also important selective forces sculpting complex microbial assemblages in the phyllosphere, rhizosphere, and plant endosphere compartments.
A facilitation cascade is a sequence of ecological interactions that occur when a species benefits a second species that in turn has a positive effect on a third species. These facilitative interactions can take the form of amelioration of environmental stress and/or provision of refuge from predation. Autogenic ecosystem engineering species, structural species, habitat-forming species, and foundation species are associated with the most commonly recognized examples of facilitation cascades, sometimes referred to as a habitat cascades. Facilitation generally is a much broader concept that includes all forms of positive interactions including pollination, seed dispersal, and co-evolved commensalism and mutualistic relationships, such as between cnidarian hosts and Symbiodinium in corals, and between algae and fungi in lichens. As such, facilitation cascades are widespread through all of the earth's major biomes with consistently positive effects on the abundance and biodiversity of associated organisms.
In biology, parallel speciation is a type of speciation where there is repeated evolution of reproductively isolating traits via the same mechanisms occurring between separate yet closely related species inhabiting different environments. This leads to a circumstance where independently evolved lineages have developed reproductive isolation from their ancestral lineage, but not from other independent lineages that inhabit similar environments. In order for parallel speciation to be confirmed, there is a set of three requirements that has been established that must be met: there must be phylogenetic independence between the separate populations inhabiting similar environments to ensure that the traits responsible for reproductive isolation evolved separately, there must be reproductive isolation not only between the ancestral population and the descendent population, but also between descendent populations that inhabit dissimilar environments, and descendent populations that inhabit similar environments must not be reproductively isolated from one another. To determine if natural selection specifically is the cause of parallel speciation, a fourth requirement has been established that includes identifying and testing an adaptive mechanism, which eliminates the possibility of a genetic factor such as polyploidy being the responsible agent.
An intertidal bioflim is a biofilm that forms on the intertidal region of bodies of water. Bacteria and various microorganisms, including algae and fungi, form communities of adhered cells called biofilms. A matrix of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) within the biofilm forms sticky coatings on individual sediment particles and detrital surfaces. This feature protects bacteria against environmental stresses like temperature and pH fluctuations, UV exposure, changes in salinity, depletion of nutrients, antimicrobial agents, desiccation, and predation. Particularly, in the ever-changing environments of intertidal systems, biofilms can facilitate a range of microbial processes and create protective microenvironments where cells communicate with each other and regulate further biofilm formation via Quorum Sensing (QS)., While biofilm formation is advantageous to bacteria and other microorganisms involved, the attachment of microorganisms to ship hulls can increase fuel consumption and emission of greenhouse gases, as well as introduce Non-Indigenous Species (NIS), potentially resulting in harmful economic and ecological impacts on the receiving ecosystems.
Obligate mutualism is a special case of mutualism where an ecological interaction between species mutually benefits each other, and one or all species are unable to survive without the other. In some obligate relationships, only one species is dependent on the relationship. For example, a parasite may require a host in order to reproduce and survive, while the host does not depend at all on the parasite. Fig and fig wasps are an example of a co-obligate relationship, where both species are totally dependent on the relationship. The fig plant is entirely dependent on the fig wasp for pollination, and the fig wasp requires the fig plant for reproductive purposes. Many insect-fungi relationships are also co-obligate: the insect disperses, and in some cases protects, the fungi while the fungi provide nutrients for the insects. This interaction allows insects and fungi to, as a group, inhabit previously inhospitable or unreachable environments. Though obligate relationships need not be limited to two species, they are often discussed as such, with the relationship being made up of a host and a symbiont, though the terms are often attributed arbitrarily.
References
- ↑ Bertness, Mark D.; Callaway, Ragan (May 1994). "Positive interactions in communities". Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 9 (5): 191–193. doi:10.1016/0169-5347(94)90088-4. ISSN 0169-5347. PMID 21236818.
- ↑ Holmgren, M.; Scheffer, M. (2010). "Strong facilitation in mild environments: the stress gradient hypothesis revisited". Journal of Ecology. 98 (6): 1269–1275. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2745.2010.01709.x. S2CID 83827444.
- ↑ Hammarlund, Sarah P.; Harcombe, William R. (2019-07-18). "Refining the stress gradient hypothesis in a microbial community". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116 (32): 15760–15762. Bibcode:2019PNAS..11615760H. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1910420116 . ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 6690025 . PMID 31320585.
- ↑ Adams, Amy E.; Besozzi, Elizabeth M.; Shahrokhi, Golya; Patten, Michael A. (2021-11-13). "A case for associational resistance: Apparent support for the stress gradient hypothesis varies with study system". Ecology Letters. 25 (1): 202–217. doi: 10.1111/ele.13917 . hdl: 11250/2833572 . ISSN 1461-023X. PMID 34775662. S2CID 244115652.
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