Ecological Relationships

The whole Earth is one big living family of myriads of living organism coexisting in a synchronized manner. There are varying degrees of close relationship between different organisms of different species. These relations are again dependant on various factors like for example the Environmental Factor. The Habitat is where organisms’ lives with a certain ecosystem. There is also a Niche factor where each population has a role to play to maintain the ecosystem of the Habitat. In a healthy ecosystem different species of ecological population are interdependent on each other for their survival. There are five types of Ecological relationships namely,

Competition and Predation; Predation is when one organism eats another for survival and nutrition. The organism that is eaten is the prey and the one that eats the Predator. In this scenario competition occurs when two or more species survive on the same resources for example Tigers, Lions and hyenas hunting gazelles.

Commensalism; in this relation one organism benefits, while the other is neither negatively affected nor helped. For example barnacles that grows on whales and other marine creature. Though the barnacles get mobility and security it does not harm the Whales.

Parasitism; in this relation one of the species lives of another organism, it could be harmful but not always leading to death of the host organism. For example, ticks, fleas, which live of other animals for survival.

Mutualism; this relation seems to be the ideal where both organism benefit from each other. For example, flowers and bees, the flowers provide pollen to bees for making honey while the bees helps the plants in pollination.

By: Madhuchanda Saxena

Content: https://www.toppr.com/guides/biology/organism-and-populations/population-and-population-interaction/