Episode description:
In this series on symbiosis, we’re taking a deep dive into the many different types of relationships organisms have evolved into, the good, the bad, the benign. This episode highlights relationships in which one partner’s a total dud: behold the neutral symbiont. The relationships can be the result of complete and totally unbalanced competition where the other symbiont is harmed (amensalism) or when one species exploits and is benefitted by the resources offered up by the other at no cost to the latter (commensalism: think dung beetles). No species is entirely isolated from the impact of another organism in its environment so we’ll talk about that gray space between commensalism and mutualism, amensalism and exploitation. Welcome to the Single Acorn.
Produced by: Crow’s Path
Hosted by: Professor Eweagey (aka Teage O’Connor), Glenn Etter, Dr. Christine Fleener
Supported by: Our patrons @ patreon.com/CrowsPath
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Theme music by: Jake Weiss
Logo design by: Caitlin LaDulce
Ads by: Sara Siegel
WORKS CITED
- Interspecific Communicative and Coordinated Hunting between Groupers and Giant Moray Eels in the Red Sea
- Goutweed (link)
- Giant Plant Eats Rodents (link)
- Are specialists at risk under environmental change? Neoecological, paleoecological and phylogenetic approaches (link)
- Sacculina, barnacle and castrator parasite (link)
- Dioecy and herbivory: The effect of growth rate on plant defense in Acer negundo (link)
- Natural selection and sexual size dimorphism in red-winged blackbirds (link)
- On Competition Between Galium Saxatile L. (G. Hercynicum Weig.) and Galium Sylvestre Poll. (G. Asperum Schreb.) On Different Types of Soil (link)
- Treefalls Revisited: Gap Dynamics in the Southern Appalachians (link)
- The Influence of Interspecific Competition and Other Factors on the Distribution of the Barnacle Chthamalus Stellatus (link)
- The importance of predation and competition in organizing the intertidal epifaunal communities of Barnegat Inlet, New Jersey (link)
- Ecological character displacement in Plethodon: Biomechanical differences found from a geometric morphometric study (link)
- Is the biomass of red-backed salamanders in New England greater than that of white-tailed?
- A RBS weighs ~.018oz. That’s about 900 salamanders per pound. Male deer weigh about 150lbs, females 100lbs. So if the average deer is 125lbs, that’d be the equivalent of about 111,000 red-backed salamanders
- Ecological character displacement between a native and an introduced species: the invasion of Anolis cristatellus in Dominica (link)
