List of symbiotic relationships
From Freepedia
This is an incomplete list of notable mutualistic symbiotic relationships, in which different species have a cooperative or mutually dependent relationship.
- Algae with fungi in lichens
- Vascular plants with fungi in mycorrhiza
- Anglerfish with the bioluminescent bacteria that illuminate its 'lure'
- Ants with aphids and with some caterpillars
- Cleaner fish or cleaner shrimp with other large fish like groupers, sharks and moray eels
- Corals with zooxanthella
- Flowering plants with pollinators such as bees
- Goby fish with shrimp
- Humans with cultivated plants and with domesticated animals
- Leafcutter ants with the fungus they 'farm'
- Legumes with Rhizobia (nitrogen-fixing bacteria)
- Deep-sea pompeii worm and the thermophilic bacteria which grow on it
- Ratel or 'honey badger' with the honeyguide bird
- Ruminants such as cows and their intestinal bacteria which break down cellulose
- Sea anemones with clownfish, crabs or shrimps
- Termites with their intestinal bacteria which digest cellulose
- Egyptian plovers with crocodiles
- acacia ant(Pseudomyrmex ferruginea) and a swollen thorn acacia tree
- Oxpeckers with the rhinoceros
- Polydnavirus with parasitoid wasps (though not necessarily mutually dependant)
- shark with remora
Note
Some of these relationships are so close that we speak of the composite of two species as one unit, for example, we speak of the composite of algae and fungi as lichens. This is analogous to our speaking of a modulator and a demodulator as a modem. (See list of equipment pairs.)
Reference
Awake! (magazine), September 8, 2005, pages 3-10, describes at least 20 mutualistic symbiotic relationships between different species, and at least three among members of the same species. Counting depends on how narrowly one subdivides categories. Seventeen full-color photographs, including one on the front cover and one on the second page, illustrate some of these relationships.
