Symbiosis

When, in nature, two little guys are benefiting off each other one way or another, we call that symbiosis. But, if you think about it too hard, you start to realize that everything in nature is benefitting off some other thing in nature somehow and come to the conclusion that all of Earth is a giant symbiotic relationship! To that I say: simply try not to think about it too hard!

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[Fact Off]

Figs and fig wasp cheating prevention 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1635526/

https://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/pollinators/pollinator-of-the-month/fig_wasp.shtml

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2010/01/figs-kill-wasp-larvae-when-wasps-do-not-pollinate-figs

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2009.2157

Magnetotactic bacteria in tissues of animals with magnetoreception  

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200914112224.htm

[Ask the Science Couch]

Symbioses with more than 2 organisms

https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/species-interactions-and-competition-102131429/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8331144/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17255511/

https://www.princeton.edu/news/2019/06/27/sea-slugs-use-algaes-bacterial-weapons-factory-three-way-symbiotic-relationship

https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2016/Q3/yeast-emerges-as-hidden-third-partner-in-lichen-symbiosis.html

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-drives-a-sloths-ritualistic-trek-to-poop-180949419/

[Butt One More Thing]

Crab that lives in sea urchin rectum

Picture: https://www.marinelifephotography.com/marine/arthropods/crabs/echinoecus-pentagonus.htm

https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/11997

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022098178800070

https://askabiologist.asu.edu/sea-urchin-anatomy