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Re:Mutualism
Charley Bay wrote, Dec. 8:
>.....Even "parasitism" is mutualism. The specific form of mutualism
>where both species tend to benefit (possibly not requiring an
>obligatory relationship) is "symbiotic mutualism" or "synergistic
>mutualism".
>
>If I recall from 10 years ago, there were five categories of mutualism.
>I can look them up if anyone cares.
The way I heard it, the general term is symbiosis, which is an association
between two organisms. If the association is harmful to one, it is
parasitism. If it is beneficial to both, it is mutualism. If one benefits
and the other is unaffected, it is commensalism. Theoretically, there
could be an association that is harmful to both, amensalism, but that is
extremely rare. There is a reputed case of amensalism where people urinate
in certain South American rivers where there also lives a small,spiny,
parasitic, positively rheotaxic catfish that feeds from the gills of large
fish, but it is too painful a subject to go into details. Besides we are
supposed to be talking about aquatic plants.
Paul Krombholz, in moist warm Jackson, Mississippi