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Some relationships between humans and domesticated animals and plants are to different degrees mutualistic. [ citation needed ] For example, domesticated cereals that provide food for humans have lost the ability to spread seeds by shattering , a strategy that wild grains use to spread their seeds.
Mutualism is an interaction between two or more species, where species derive a mutual benefit, for example an increased carrying capacity. Similar interactions within a species are known as co-operation. Mutualism may be classified in terms of the closeness of association, the closest being symbiosis, which is often confused with mutualism.
Diagram of the six possible types of symbiotic relationship, from mutual benefit to mutual harm. The definition of symbiosis was a matter of debate for 130 years. [7] In 1877, Albert Bernhard Frank used the term symbiosis to describe the mutualistic relationship in lichens.
The human gut contains approximately thirty-eight trillion microbes. [13] The gut is a dynamic ecosystem as it is composed of both constant and transient components, meaning some bacteria establishes itself and remains throughout the human’s lifetime and other bacteria is ingested and later leaves in feces. [ 14 ]
It’s in this way that sloths and algae have a mutually beneficial relationship, called mutualism. The sloth benefits from the algae’s disguise, and the algae has a place to live.
Mutualisms can be broadly divided into two categories. Firstly, obligate mutualism, where two mutualistic partners are completely interdependent for survival and reproduction. Secondly, facultative mutualism, where two mutualistic partners both benefit from the mutualism, but can theoretically survive in each other's absence.
Symbiosis includes three types of interactions—mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism—of which only mutualism can sometimes qualify as cooperation. Mutualism involves a close, mutually beneficial interaction between two different biological species, whereas "cooperation" is a more general term that can involve looser interactions and can ...
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. [1] In some obligate relationships, only one species is dependent on the relationship.