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A bear with a salmon. Interspecific interactions such as predation are a key aspect of community ecology.. In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage.
A classic example of amensalism is the microbial production of antibiotics that can inhibit or kill other, susceptible microorganisms. A clear case of amensalism is where sheep or cattle trample grass. Whilst the presence of the grass causes negligible detrimental effects to the animal's hoof, the grass suffers from being crushed.
Group living may sometimes be confused with collective animal behavior. Collective animal behavior is the study of how the interactions between individuals of a group give rise to group level patterns and how these patterns have evolved. [5] Examples include the marching of locusts and flocks of migrating birds.
Cooperation exists not only in humans but in other animals as well. The diversity of taxa that exhibits cooperation is quite large, ranging from zebra herds to pied babblers to African elephants. Many animal and plant species cooperate with both members of their own species and with members of other species.
Collective animal behaviour is a form of social behavior involving the coordinated behavior of large groups of similar animals as well as emergent properties of these groups. This can include the costs and benefits of group membership, the transfer of information, decision-making process, locomotion and synchronization of the group.
For example, in paper wasp species, Agelaia pallipes, social facilitation is used to recruitment to food resources. By using chemical communication, A. pallipes pool the independent search efforts to locate and defend food sources from other organisms.
Guilds are defined according to the locations, attributes, or activities of their component species. For example, the mode of acquiring nutrients, the mobility, and the habitat zones that the species occupy or exploit can be used to define a guild. The number of guilds occupying an ecosystem is termed its disparity. [5]
An example of such "whole-community" facilitation is substrate stabilization of cobble beach plant communities in Rhode Island, US, by smooth cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora). [6] Large beds of cordgrass buffer wave action, thus allowing the establishment and persistence of a community of less disturbance-tolerant annual and perennial plants ...