Ecological interactions

"No man is an island.” This saying is also true for organisms in an ecosystem. No organism exists in isolation. Individual
organisms live together in an ecosystem and depend on one another. In fact, they have many different types of interactions with
each other, and many of these interactions are critical for their survival.

So what do these interactions look like in an ecosystem? One category of interactions describes the different ways organisms
obtain their food and energy. Some organisms can make their own food, and other organisms have to get their food by eating
other organisms. An organism that must obtain their nutrients by eating (consuming) other organisms is called a consumer, or
a heterotroph. While there are a lot of fancy words related to the sciences, one of the great things is that many of them are based
on Latin or Greek roots. For example, heterotroph becomes easier to remember when you realize that in Greek, “hetero” means
“other” and “troph” means food; in other words, heterotrophs eat other organisms to get their food. They then use the energy and
materials in that food to grow, reproduce and carry out all of their life activities. All animals, all fungi, and some kinds of bacteria
are heterotrophs and consumers. .

Some consumers are predators; they hunt, catch, kill, and eat other animals, the prey. The prey animal tries to avoid being eaten
by hiding, fleeing, or defending itself using various adaptations and strategies. These could be the camouflage of an octopus or a
fawn, the fast speed of a jackrabbit or impala, or the sting of a bee or spines of a sea urchin. If the prey is not successful, it
becomes a meal and energy source for the predator. If the prey is successful and eludes its predator, the predator must expend
precious energy to continue the hunt elsewhere. Predators can also be prey, depending on what part of the food chain you are
looking at. For example, a trout acts as a predator when it eats insects, but it is prey when it is eaten by a bear. It all depends on
the specific details of the interaction. Ecologists use other specific names that describe what type of food a consumer
eats: carnivores and herbivores are meat eaters and plant eaters, respectively. Omnivores eat both animals and plants. Once
again, knowing the Latin root helps a lot: "vor" means "to eat or devour," as in "voracious.” Put "-vore" at the end of a scientific
term for a kind of food, and you have described what an organism eats. For example, an insectivore is a carnivore that eats
insects, and a frugivore is an herbivore that eats fruit. This may seem like a lot of terminology, but it helps scientists
communicate and immediately understand a lot about a particular type of organism by using the precise terms.

Not all organisms need to eat others for food and energy. Some organisms have the amazing ability to make (produce) their own
energy-rich food molecules from sunlight and simple chemicals. Organisms that make their own food by using sunlight or
chemical energy to convert simple inorganic molecules into complex, energy-rich organic molecules like glucose are
called producers or autotrophs. And here’s another quick Greek lesson: “auto” means “self” and “troph” still means “food.” So
autotrophs are self-feeding; they make their own food. Plants, algae, and microscopic organisms such as phytoplankton and some
bacteria, make energy-rich molecules (in other words, their food) from sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide during the process
called photosynthesis (“photo” means “light, and “synthesis” means “to make” – photosynthesizers are using sunlight to make
food). Some producers are chemosynthesizers (using chemicals to make food) rather than photosynthesizers; instead of using
sunlight as the source of energy to make energy-rich molecules, these bacteria and their relatives use simple chemicals as their
source of energy. Chemosynthesizers live in places with no sunlight, such as along oceanic vents at great depths on the ocean
floor.

No matter how long you or a giraffe stands out in the sun, you will never be able to make food by just soaking up the sunshine;
you will never be able to photosynthesize. You’ll just get sunburned and thirsty and will still need to go eat another organism if
you are hungry. Producers use the food that they make and the chemical energy it contains to meet their own needs for building-
block molecules and energy so that they can do things such as grow, move, and reproduce. When a consumer comes along and
eats a producer, the consumer gets the building-block molecules and the chemical energy that is in the producer’s body. All other
life depends on the energy-rich food molecules made by producers – either directly by eating producers, or indirectly by eating
organisms that have eaten producers. Not surprisingly, ecologists also have terms that describe where in the food chain a
particular consumer operates. A primary consumer eats producers (e.g., a caterpillar eating a leaf); a secondary consumer eats
primary consumers (e.g., a robin eating the caterpillar). And it can go even further: a tertiary consumer eats secondary
consumers (e.g., a hawk eating the robin). A single individual animal can act as a different type of consumer depending on what
it is eating. When a bear eats berries, for example, it is being a primary consumer, but when it eats a fish, it might be a secondary
or a tertiary consumer, depending on what the fish ate!

All organisms play a part in the web of life and every living thing will die at some point. This is
where scavengers, detritivores (which eat detritus or parts of dead things), and decomposers come in. They all play a critical
role that often goes unnoticed when observing the workings of an ecosystem. They break down carcasses, body parts and waste
products, returning to the ecosystem the nutrients and minerals stored in them. This interaction is critical for our health and
health of the entire planet; without them we would be literally buried in dead stuff. Crabs, insects, fungi and bacteria are
examples of these important clean-up specialists.
Another category of interactions between organisms has to do with close, usually long-term interaction between different types of
organisms. These interactions are called symbiosis. The impacts of symbiosis can be positive, negative, or neutral for the
individuals involved. Organisms often provide resources or services to each other; the interaction is mutually beneficial. These
“win-win” symbiotic interactions are known as mutualism (+ +). For example, ants living in a tree may protect the tree from an
organism that would like to make the tree its next meal, and at the same time the tree provides a safe home for the ants.
Symbiotic relationships are not always positive for both participants. Sometimes there are definite losers. In parasitism (+ -), for
example, the parasite benefits and the host is harmed, such as when a tick sucks blood out of a dog. Predation (+ -) is another
winner-loser relationship but it is not symbiosis. The predator benefits and the prey is harmed lethally, but it is a short-term
interaction. In parasitism, the parasite does not usually kill its host, but just feeds on it for a long time while it is living.

Other symbiotic interactions, called commensalism (+ 0), are beneficial for one organism, but do not affect the other in a
positive or a negative way. The interaction is seemingly neutral for one of the organisms. For example, a barnacle attached to a
whale is able to travel thousands of miles collecting and filtering food from the moving water. The whale doesn’t seem to be
affected by the little hitchhikers. But then again, maybe those little hitchhikers are actually creating a tiny amount of additional
drag as the whale moves through the water and therefore the whale has to expend just a little bit of additional energy. If so, that
would be a negative impact for the whale. Often, further research reveals that what was originally thought to be neutral for one
participant and therefore an example of commensalism, actually has a very subtle positive or negative impact, so the
classification is no longer commensalism, but rather mutualism or parasitism. Is a bird nest on a tree limb commensalism, or is
there some slight advantage or disadvantage for the tree in having the nest there? It is possible to come up with plausible
explanations either way; only detailed research could provide the necessary information to answer the question.

Competition is an interesting example of interactions. When two organisms compete or fight for the same limited resource such
as food, shelter, a mate, or sunlight, there is usually a winner and a loser (+ -), but if the competitors fight literally to the death
and kill each other, the interaction has become negative for both (- -). Competition is also an interesting example because it is just
as likely to be intraspecific as interspecific (language alert: the prefix “intra” means “within” and the prefix “inter” means
"between"). An intraspecific interaction occurs within a species (e.g., two bull elephant seals competing for a harem of females or
two English ivy plants competing for space and sunlight), and an interspecific interaction occurs between members of different
species (e.g., when two different species of corals compete for space and sunlight on a coral reef by trying to outgrow each
other). If the competition is long-term and occurs between two different species, it would be another example of symbiosis.

In summary, there are many different kinds of interactions between organisms in an ecosystem and it is not unusual for any
particular organism to wear many hats and play multiple roles at different times. For example, we humans are consumers and
predators when we hunt, kill, and eat other animals such as a fish or a deer, or when we eat chicken we have purchased at the
grocery store or a restaurant. We also have many mutualistic relationships with other organisms, such as our pets. Competition
also occurs between humans for resources, even mates! Interactions between organisms, including humans, are the nature of life
and have tremendous impact on the functioning and health of ecosystems.

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

 Explain how biotic and abiotic factors affect organisms in an ecosystem.