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The human population exploits and depends on many animal and plant species for food, mainly through agriculture, but also by exploiting wild populations, notably of marine fish. [ 10 ] [ 11 ] [ 12 ] Livestock animals are raised for meat across the world; they include (2011) around 1.4 billion cattle , 1.2 billion sheep and 1 billion domestic pigs .
The plant Arabidopsis thaliana is used in laboratories as a model organism to understand how genes control the growth and development of plant structures. [25] NASA predicts that space stations or space colonies will one day rely on plants for life support. [26] Scientific advances in genetic engineering led to developments in crops.
Plant-animal interactions are important pathways for the transfer of energy within ecosystems, where both advantageous and unfavorable interactions support ecosystem health. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Plant-animal interactions can take on important ecological functions and manifest in a variety of combinations of favorable and unfavorable associations, for ...
Some relationships between humans and domesticated animals and plants are to different degrees mutualistic. For example, agricultural varieties of maize provide food for humans and are unable to reproduce without human intervention because the leafy sheath does not fall open, and the seedhead (the "corn on the cob") does not shatter to scatter ...
Numerous animals have coevolved with plants; flowering plants have evolved pollination syndromes, suites of flower traits that favour their reproduction. Many, including insect and bird partners, are pollinators, visiting flowers and accidentally transferring pollen in exchange for food in the form of pollen or nectar. [84]
Early processes of plant regeneration greatly depend on plant-animal interactions and because these interactions are interrupted, biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are threatened. [68] Pollination by animals aids in the genetic variability and diversity within plants because it allows for out-crossing instead for self-crossing.
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It is a common concept in animal evolution but, with plants, it is often overlooked because many plants are hermaphrodites. Flowering plants have many sexually selected characteristics. For example, flower symmetry, nectar production, floral structure, and inflorescences are among the secondary sex characteristics acted upon by sexual selection.