Symbiosis (Interactions Between Organisms)

All the living and nonliving things in an area.

Nonliving things include air, water, temperature, amount of sunlight, minerals, salinity, and pH.

Such factors include things like resource availability, competition between organisms for resources, organisms eating other organisms, and changes in the environment.

Organisms might interact in an ecosystem to get the food, water, or shelter they need to survive.

Answers will vary.

If we understand the feeding relationships between organisms in an ecosystem, then we have a better understanding of energy flow within the ecosystem. Relationships vary in importance with respect to energy flow as well as the overall effect on ecosystem stability.

Competition, predation, parasitism, mutualism, and commensalism

Without predators, organisms that are prey (like the rabbit in the video) would become overpopulated in an ecosystem. Eventually, they would eat all of the plants, become sickly, and/or die of starvation.

Food webs show where each organism gets its energy from.

Over many generations, both organisms have adapted and found a specialty that allows both to thrive. For example, the hawk hunts during the day, and the owl hunts at night.

Both the termite and the bacteria benefit from the feeding relationship (mutualism). Without the bacteria, the termite would starve; without the termite the bacteria would not have a food source. If this were a parasitic relationship, then one of the organisms would benefit, and the other would be harmed.

An ecologist and a marine biologist are two careers that study symbiotic relationships. An ecologist could study all kinds of ecosystems, and knowing the interactions can help her or him preserve ecosystems. A marine biologist specializes in studying life in the ocean.