Symbiotic Relationships The act of living together.

Mutualism An association between organisms of two different species in which each member benefits. Advantages: Increases population since no one dies. Disadvantages: None.

Mutualism Clean Fish & Moray Eel The cleaner fish eats parasites and food bits out of the mouth of moray eel. It gets a meal and is protected from predators by the fierce eel.

Commensialism Is a relationship between the host and symbiont, where the symbiont benefits and the host is neither helped nor harmed. Advantages: The symbiont benefits by receiving transportation, housing, and/or nutrition. Disadvantages: The host does not benefit.

Commensialism Example: The remora attaches itself to the shark and saves energy since it doesn’t have to swim, and it gets to snack on the sharks kills. The shark doesn’t get anything. Shark & Remora

Parasitism A relationship between two species in which one species, the parasite, benefits from the other species, the host, and usually harms the host. Advantages: The only advantages are for the parasite. Disadvantages: The disadvantages will fall upon the host.

Parasitism Examples:  Ticks  Fleas  Tapeworms  Heartworm

Parasitism Loa Loa Worm & Human This worm infects human the blood stream and gets a nice warm safe home there. The human may go blind or have other complications as a result.

Predator/Prey A predator is an organism the eats another organism. Prey is the organism which the predator eats. Predation and prey effects the population by determining whether a certain population is big or small. – If the level of predation is small, there is a chance of over population. – If there is to many predators then there is a chance that an entire population can be killed out.

Predator/Prey