ECOSYSTEM — Ecological Relationships

• Ecological Relationships are the interactions between and among living organisms within their environment.
• The two kinds of interactions are Intraspecific and Interspecific Interactions
• Intraspecific Interaction exists between individuals of the same species.
• Interspecific Interaction exists between individuals of different species.
• Protocooperation occurs when two living organisms live closely together for a certain period
• Endosymbiosis occurs when animals cannot be separated and therefore have to spend their whole lives together
• The 7 Ecological relationships are:

  1. Mutualism
  2. Commensalism
  3. Amensalism
  4. Predation
  5. Parasitism
  6. Competition
  7. Coexistence
• Mutualism Refers to a relationship where both organisms derive benefits from each other’s presence or actions
• Mutualism is characterized as a "give and take" relationship
• Commensalism sescribes a symbiotic relationship in which one organism benefits, while the other remains unaffected.
• Commensal is the organism that benefits from a relationship of commensalism.
• Parasitism involves one organism, the parasite, benefiting while exploiting another organism, the host.
• Host is the organism that is harmed
• Parasite is the organism that harms
• Endoparasite is a parasite that lives IN the body of the host
• Ectoparasite is a parasite that lives ON the body of the host
• Parasitoid is a parasite that causes the eventual death of the host.
• Predation occurs when one organism consumes another organism (by killing) in order to acquire essential nutrients.
• Predator is the organism that lives by killing, hunting, or eating other animals
• Prey is the one that is harmed and taken by the predator as food
• Amensalism is where one species causes harm to another organism without any benefits to itself
• Antibiosis is an organism that is harmed or killed  by a different organism's chemical secretion.
• Competition is when the survival one of the participating organisms is lowered by the presence of one another.
• Intraspecific Competition is the competition between organisms within same species
• Interspecific Competition is the competition between organisms from two different species.
• Species in an Interspecific competition will never fight over a mate
• Coexistence involves sharing limited resources to lessen excessive elimination and real fight.
• The 2 methods observed in coexistence are Character Displacement and Resource Partitioning
• Character displacement involves a change in the behavior of species and resource specialization
• Resource Partitioning is the division of a resource among two or more coexisting species so that the niche of each species differs slightly.