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A fish parasite, the isopod Cymothoa exigua, replacing the tongue of a Lithognathus. Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. [1]
In a parasitic relationship, the parasite benefits while the host is harmed. [49] Parasitism takes many forms, from endoparasites that live within the host's body to ectoparasites and parasitic castrators that live on its surface and micropredators like mosquitoes that visit intermittently. Parasitism is an extremely successful mode of life ...
Parasitism is a relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives on or in another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. [20] The parasite either feeds on the host, or, in the case of intestinal parasites, consumes some of its food. [21]
The degree of change between mutualism or parasitism varies depending on the availability of resources, where there is environmental stress generated by few resources, symbiotic relationships are formed while in environments where there is an excess of resources, biological interactions turn to competition and parasitism.
Primary parasitoids have the simplest parasitic relationship, involving two organisms, the host and the parasitoid. Hyperparasitoids are parasitoids of parasitoids; secondary parasitoids have a primary parasitoid as their host, so there are three organisms involved.
Mutualism can be contrasted with interspecific competition, in which each species experiences reduced fitness, and exploitation, and with parasitism, in which one species benefits at the expense of the other. [2] However, mutualism may evolve from interactions that began with imbalanced benefits, such as parasitism. [3]
The parasite is responsible for the disease known as river blindness in Africa. Sample was chemically fixed and critical point dried, then observed using conventional scanning electron microscopy. Magnified 100×. Parasitology is the study of parasites, their hosts, and the relationship between them.
Parasites follow a wide variety of evolutionary strategies, placing their hosts in an equally wide range of relationships. [2] Parasitism implies host–parasite coevolution, including the maintenance of gene polymorphisms in the host, where there is a trade-off between the advantage of resistance to a parasite and a cost such as disease caused ...