symbiotic
(adjective)
of a relationship with mutual benefit between two individuals or organisms
Examples of symbiotic in the following topics:
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Nitrogen Fixation: Root and Bacteria Interactions
- Plants cannot extract the necessary nitrogen from soil, so they form symbiotic relationships with rhizobia that can fix it as ammonia.
- The most important source of BNF is the symbiotic interaction between soil bacteria and legume plants, including many crops important to humans.
- Soil bacteria, collectively called rhizobia, symbiotically interact with legume roots to form specialized structures called nodules in which nitrogen fixation takes place .
- Through symbiotic nitrogen fixation, the plant benefits from using an endless source of nitrogen from the atmosphere.
- Some common edible legumes, such as (a) peanuts, (b) beans, and (c) chickpeas, are able to interact symbiotically with soil bacteria that fix nitrogen.
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Mycorrhizae: The Symbiotic Relationship between Fungi and Roots
- Mycorrhizae, known as root fungi, form symbiotic associations with plant roots.
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Protists as Primary Producers, Food Sources, and Symbionts
- In this symbiotic relationship, these protists provide nutrients for the coral polyps that house them, giving corals a boost of energy to secrete a calcium carbonate skeleton .
- This type of symbiotic relationship is important in nutrient-poor environments.
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Symbiosis
- Commensalism, mutualism, and parasitism are three symbiotic ways organisms interact with each other with differing degrees of benefit.
- Symbiotic relationships, or symbioses (plural), are close interactions between individuals of different species over an extended period of time which impact the abundance and distribution of the associating populations.
- A second type of symbiotic relationship, mutualism, is where two species both benefit from their interaction.
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Symbiosis between Bacteria and Eukaryotes
- Other bacteria live symbiotically with legume plants, providing the most important source of BNF.
- Soil bacteria, collectively called rhizobia, are able to symbiotically interact with legumes to form nodules: specialized structures where nitrogen fixation occurs .
- Through symbiotic nitrogen fixation, the plant benefits from using an endless source of nitrogen: the atmosphere.
- Soybean (Glycine max) is a legume that interacts symbiotically with the soil bacterium Bradyrhizobium japonicum to form specialized structures on the roots called nodules where nitrogen fixation occurs.
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Endosymbiosis and the Evolution of Eukaryotes
- Over many generations, a symbiotic relationship can result in two organisms that depend on each other so completely that neither could survive on its own.
- Schimper had tentatively proposed that green plants arose from a symbiotic union of two organisms.
- However, it now appears that they may be formed de novo, contradicting the idea that they have a symbiotic origin.
- It is believed that over millennia these endosymbionts transferred some of their own DNA to the host cell's nucleus during the evolutionary transition from a symbiotic community to an instituted eukaryotic cell (called "serial endosymbiosis").
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Pollination by Insects
- Plants have developed adaptations to promote symbiotic relationships with insects that ensure their pollination.
- Thus, both the insect and flower benefit from each other in this symbiotic relationship.
- Both the moth and plant benefit from each other as they have formed a symbiotic relationship; the plant is pollinated while the moth is able to obtain food.
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Nutrients from Other Sources
- A symbiont is a plant in a symbiotic relationship with other organisms, such as mycorrhizae (with fungi) or nodule formation.
- Root nodules occur on plant roots (primarily Fabaceae) that associate with symbiotic, nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
- Under nitrogen-limiting conditions, capable plants form a symbiotic relationship with a host-specific strain of bacteria known as rhizobia.
- Fungi also form symbiotic associations with cyanobacteria and green algae; the resulting symbiotic organism is called a lichen.
- Lichens, which result from the symbiotic relationship between fungi and green algae, are often seen growing on trees.
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Signaling in Bacteria
- The first evidence of bacterial communication was observed in a bacterium that has a symbiotic relationship with Hawaiian bobtail squid.
- (b) Hawaiian bobtail squid have a symbiotic relationship with the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri.
- Free-living V. fischeri do not produce luciferase, the enzyme responsible for luminescence, but V. fischeri living in a symbiotic relationship with the squid do.
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Glomeromycota
- Glomeromycetes are an important group of fungi that live in close symbiotic association with the roots of trees and plants.