Collaboration Benefits Multiple Participants

Biological Strategy

Mangroves

AskNature Team

Cooperate/Compete Between Different Species

From parasitism to mutualisms, there are endless interactions between organisms in nature. Interactions between species that lead to a negative outcome for one species are known as competition. Cooperation occurs when organisms work together for the benefit of each organism or species. While competition often occurs over resources or mates, the more biologists have begun to look for examples of cooperation in nature, the more they have found. For example, around 90% of plants have a beneficial partnership with fungi. Fungi provide the plant with nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, in exchange for sugars from the plant.

Search this Function

Cooperate Within an Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a community of organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) interacting with one another and the nonliving components of their environment (such as air, water, and mineral soil). This interaction can be passive or active, and can cooperatively enhance the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole. For cooperation to contribute to maintaining communities within an ecosystem, it must be beneficial to at least some members of the community. Cooperation consists of symbiotic relationships, such as mutualism (in which two or more species in an ecosystem benefit) and commensalism (in which one species benefits and the effect on others is neutral). An example of a commensal relationship is that between bromeliad plants and trees: bromeliads live on trees without harming them. Bromeliads have mutualistic relationships with other species, including insects, frogs, and worms. The plants capture water in their base, forming a pond that these organisms join. The nutrients that these organisms excrete in their droppings nourish the bromeliad.

Search this Function

Cycle Nutrients

In ecosystems, there is no such thing as waste. Instead, one organism’s waste can be considered as another organism’s resource, and the cycling of nutrients may be the most important form of recycling in living systems. But sometimes those nutrients are transformed by one organism into a form that isn’t readily used by other organisms. For example, lignin is a complex organic molecule found in the cell walls of plants. In a forest, it’s one of the hardest molecules to break down in woody vegetation. Therefore, ecosystems include organisms that are particularly well-adapted to break down different types of nutrients. In the case of lignin, some fungi and bacteria release lignin-modifying enzymes that can break down the lignin to form carbohydrates and other life-supporting chemicals.

Search this Function

Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

Search this Living System

Several species of epiphytes, ants, fungi, and butterflies in mangrove forests provide benefits to each other through mutualism.

“For instance, in [sic] Australian Myrmecodia plants, which may weigh several kilograms, have a bulbous stem honeycombed with tunnels occupied by the ant Iridomyrmex (and, in addition, a butterfly larva). Ants living in such ‘ant-house’ plants clearly gain protection: is there any advantage to the plant? Another myrmecophyte species, Hydnophytum formicarium, has specialised absorptive chambers. Ants deposit their debris here, and it has been demonstrated experimentally that when the colony is fed radioactively labelled Drosophila larvae radioactive compounds are absorbed into the plant. The relationship is therefore mutual: ants obtain shelter, and the plants a supply of scarce nutrients, particularly nitrogen. Saprophytic fungi growing in the ant galleries probably play a role in releasing soluble nutrients from the ant debris. To make the situation even more complicated, the ants also tend larvae of the butterfly Hypochrysops which feed on the tubers and leaves of the ant plant. An epiphytic plant therefore grows on a mangrove tree, accommodates ants, which tend butterfly larvae and supply nutrients to their host, aided by fungi: two plants, one or more fungi, and two animal species interacting (Huxley 1978; Janzen 1974).” (Hogarth 1999:58)

Last Updated May 12, 2020

References

Book

The Biology of Mangroves and Seagrasses (Biology of Habitats Series)

31/05/2007 | Peter Hogarth

embedly preview

Reference

Journal article

THE ANT-PLANTS MYRMECODIA AND HYDNOPHYTUM (RUBIACEAE), AND THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THEIR MORPHOLOGY, ANT OCCUPANTS, PHYSIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY

New Phytologist | 01/05/1978 | CAMILLA R. HUXLEY

embedly preview

Reference

Journal article

Epiphytic Myrmecophytes in Sarawak: Mutualism Through the Feeding of Plants by Ants

Biotropica | 01/05/1974 | Daniel H. Janzen

embedly preview

AskNature