Dependencies Among Species

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• Dependencies Among Species

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Dependencies Among Species

• Each species depends on the services provided by
  other species to ensure survival.
• It is a type of cooperation based on mutual
  survival and is often what a balanced ecosystem
  refers to.
• Many relationships in nature involve dependence.
  Sometimes species are so closely linked that the
  survival of one depends completely on the
  survival of another.

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Dependencies Among Species

• Many people are familiar with species
  relationships such as predation and parasitism,
  but not all survival relationships are harmful.
• Many species evolve in close contact that
  gradually benefits both partners so much that
  each species comes to rely on the other
  completely for its continued survival.

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Dependencies Among Species

• Plants provide food, shelter, and nesting sites
  for other organisms.
• For their part, many plants depend upon animals
  for help in reproduction (bees pollinate flowers,
  for instance) and for certain nutrients (such as
  minerals in animal waste products).
• All animals are part of food webs that include
  plants and animals of other species (and
  sometimes the same species).
• The predator/prey relationship is common, with
  its offensive tools for predatorsteeth, beaks,
  claws, venom, etc.and its defensive tools for
  preycamouflage to hide, speed to escape, spines
  to ward off, irritating substances to repel.
• Some species come to depend very closely on
  others (for instance, pandas or koalas can eat
  only certain species of trees).
• Some species have become so adapted to each other
  that neither could survive without the other (for
  example, the wasps that nest only in figs and are
  the only insect that can pollinate them).

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Yucca Plants and Yucca Moths

• Sometimes species evolve such interdependence
  over time that the death of one would lead to the
  extinction of the other.
• An example of these are yucca plants and yucca
  moths.
• The yucca is a large and majestic plant native to
  desert regions of North America. There are
  several species of yucca plant.
• Each plant has its own species of moth, who lives
  on the plant.
• Although each species of plant is a yucca, and
  each of the moths is a yucca moth, each species
  of plant can only be pollinated by its own
  species of moth, and each moth can only feed on
  its own type of plant.
• No number of foreign moths or plants will do. In
  this case, the loss of even one type of moth or
  plant will lead to the total extinction of its
  partner.

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Fig Trees and Fig Wasps

• Pollinators are animals who transfer pollen from
  flower to flower, which allows fruit to grow.
• The fig tree forms two types of fruit. One is the
  fig that we eat.
• The other is a special type of fruit that serves
  as a home for fig wasps.
• This fruit has a hole for the female wasp to
  enter and lay her eggs.
• As the wasp larvae develop into adults they are
  protected and fed by the wasp house fruit.
• As adults, the wasps feed on nectar from fig
  flowers and pollinate the fig trees, allowing the
  trees to produce more trees by making regular
  seeded fruit, and more wasps by making wasp house
  fruit. The trees and wasps have evolved together
  for at least eighty million years.

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Acacia Trees and Ants

• Acacia trees also have special insect friends,
  the acacia ants.
• The trees grow with ant tunnels already formed
  inside of them to provide a place for the ants to
  live.
• They produce special honeydew specifically to
  feed the ants.
• The ants protect the trees from predators by
  attacking with their powerful stings and bites.
• The trees protect the ants with their thorns and
  bitter flavor.
• The only animal that successfully eats acacia
  trees is the giraffe, who is resistant to the
  ants painful defenses.

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Conclusion

• Life on earth would not have survived the
  evolutionary process without balance.
• However, extinction is still occurring every day.
  
• One species depends on another for survival.
• It does not matter the size of the plant or
  organism, they are all important and they play a
  very important role in the survival of each
  other.
• All species are dependent on another and in order
  for the cycle of life to continue, this balance
  has to be maintained.
• It is up to us, as a world community.