Plant and Animal Relationships

predation
one eats another


 
  • bear eating fish

  • anole eats insect

parasitism
ones benefits at the expense of another
  • insects such as mosquitoes feeding on a host

  • tapeworm or hookworms living in host's gut

  • ticks and fleas that live in a host animal's fur - bite the animals and drink its blood

  • spider mites suck sugar from plants

  • The roots of the Owl Clover are partly parasitic on the roots of other desert wildflowers.

commensalism
one benefits and other is not hurt nor helped
  • using a second organism for housing such as small mammal or bird that lives in holes in trees or orchids which live in trees

  • birds that live among cattle to eat the insects stirred up as they walk - egrets hunt for insects near a grazing animal's mouth

  • clownfish lives among the forest of tentacles of an anemone and is protected from potential predators

  • one animal attaching itself to another for transportation such as barnacles attach to shells or whales or a shrimp riding on a sea slugs

mutualism
both species benefit
  • flowers and their pollinators (examples:  bees and hummingbirds gather nectar and spread pollen)

  • birds and mammals eat  berries and fruits while plant benefits by the dispersal of it seeds

  • coral reefs

  • algae and fungi > lichen - alga gets water and nutrients from the fungus and fungus gets food from the alga

  • cleaners eat insect pests from the skin of animals (ex: Egyptian plover cleans giraffes and buffaloes)

  • many herbivores such as cows, sheep, deer, horses and rabbits depend on bacteria that live in their stomachs to break down the plant material