Bromeliad And Tree Symbiotic Relationship

Biological Strategy

Found Requirements Govern Recovery

Plants

AskNature Squad

Prototype: Steve Slater / Flickr / Some rights reserved

Physically Assemble Structure

Living systems use physical materials to create structures to serve as protection, insulation, and other purposes. These structures tin can be internal (within or fastened to the organisation itself), such as cell membranes, shells, and fur. They can also be external (detached), such as nests, burrows, cocoons, or webs. Because physical materials are limited and the free energy required to gather and create new structures is costly, living systems must employ both conservatively. Therefore, they optimize the structures' size, weight, and density. For example, weaver birds utilise two types of vegetation to create their nests: strong, a few potent fibers and numerous thin fibers. Combined, they make a strong, nonetheless flexible, nest. An case of an internal structure is a bird's bone. The bone is comprised of a mineral matrix assembled to create strong cantankerous-supports and a tubular outer surface filled with air to minimize weight.

Cooperate Within an Ecosystem

An ecosystem is a customs of organisms (plants, animals, and microbes) interacting with one another and the nonliving components of their environs (such as air, h2o, and mineral soil). This interaction tin can be passive or active, and can cooperatively heighten the functioning of the ecosystem every bit a whole. For cooperation to contribute to maintaining communities within an ecosystem, it must be benign to at least some members of the community. Cooperation consists of symbiotic relationships, such every bit mutualism (in which two or more species in an ecosystem benefit) and commensalism (in which one species benefits and the effect on others is neutral). An example of a commensal human relationship is that between bromeliad plants and trees: bromeliads live on trees without harming them. Bromeliads have mutualistic relationships with other species, including insects, frogs, and worms. The plants capture water in their base, forming a swimming that these organisms join. The nutrients that these organisms excrete in their droppings attend the bromeliad.

Manage Disturbance in a Community

When ecology conditions change, they can disrupt an ecosystem's equilibrium. Excessive pelting tin cause flooding and drought can cause woods fires. An ecosystem must be resilient to such disturbances. Disturbances are unpredictable in location, size, and intensity, so ecosystems must exist able to regrow and must accept a diverseness of duplicate forms, processes, or systems that are dispersed in location. For example, a forest ecosystem can recover from fire considering diverse organisms play different roles in different ways and in different locations. Many organisms tin resprout or grow from seeds triggered past fire, and their dispersed distribution ensures that an unabridged population isn't decimated. Though the recovered ecosystem may look totally different from the pre-fire ane, the ecosystem every bit a whole remains healthy.

Plants

Phylum Plantae ("plants"): Angiosperms, gymnosperms, green algae, and more

Plants have evolved past using special structures within their cells to harness energy directly from sunlight. There are currently over 350,000 known species of plants which include angiosperms (flowering trees and plants), gymnosperms (conifers, Gingkos, and others), ferns, hornworts, liverworts, mosses, and light-green algae. While most get energy through the process of photosynthesis, some are partially carnivores, feeding on the bodies of insects, and others are plant parasites, feeding entirely off of other plants. Plants reproduce through fruits, seeds, spores, and even asexually. They evolved around 500 1000000 years agone and tin now be establish on every continent worldwide.

Woodland ecosystems recover from disturbances via succession, depending on plants' diverse requirements for nutrients and light.

In October 1987 a hurricane struck southern England and over 15 million trees were destroyed. A few months later, foxgloves, which need good low-cal to grow, sprang upwards quickly in the nutrient-rich woodland soil. During the first twelvemonth of growth, the foxgloves store surplus food in their roots. During the second year, they blossom and disperse about a quarter of a million seeds each. Many of the foxgloves so dice, and their offspring may have to wait decades earlier having an opportunity to sprout. Nettles, which also require food-rich soil, brainstorm to compete with the foxgloves–they start more slowly, but spread more chop-chop, developing mats of horizontal stems that other seedlings take a hard time penetrating. After several years, the nettles have extracted and so many nutrients from the soil that it no longer meets their needs. They begin to falter, and the seeds of other plants with larger nutrient stores, such equally birch, brainstorm to emerge. The birch seeds require lots of light to sprout, and once sprouted remain as seedlings for several years until weather condition are most favorable. The birch gradually form a thicket, shading out other plants. Acorns also sprout and very slowly begin to abound. Equally the birch begin to fail, the oaks gradually reclaim the territory they held decades ago. The oaks, in turn, provide nutrient and shelter for hundreds of woodland creatures. (Summarized from Attenborough 1995:149-158)

Bromeliad And Tree Symbiotic Relationship

Found Requirements Govern Recovery

Plants

Physically Assemble Structure

Cooperate Within an Ecosystem

Manage Disturbance in a Community

Plants

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References