Partnerships in Nature Lecture

Mutualism - both organisms benefit

Comensulism - one organism benefits and the other neither benefits nor is harmed

Parasitism - one organism benefits and one does not

Anemone fish will secrete a mucus around themselves that allows them to swim and live in an anemone. It is a mutualism relationship.

Pistol shrimp & Goby - live in a burrow together. The shrimps can't see so the goby keeps an eye out. Whole the shrimp is cleaning out the den, the goby will tap them with their tail to let them know if there is a predator.

A blue streak cleaner wrasse will be in these cleaning stations where marine life will come from all over to get cleaned by these wrasse so that the wrasse takes parasites and dead skin off of them

Bobtail squid use bioluminescent bacteria as a form of camouflage. The squid is only a few centimeters tall.

Decorator crabs will use anemones, sponges, or seaweed to cover themselves. As anemone and sponges can't move this gets the. This lets them get food, also.

Orangutan crabs look wild. Google them.

Christmas tree worms burrow inside corals. They will deter the crown of the thorn sea stars.

Zooxanthellaes can turn sunlight into energy. It is the algae that turns corals different colors. They do the same with the upside-down jellyfish. They lay on the ocean floor upside-down doing absolutely nothing. Giant clams also go through bleaching events without the zooxanthellaes. Nudibranch eats coral and extracts the zooxanthellaes from them to have the zooxanthellaes eat for them.

Elysia marginata can regrow the entire body if the head is detached. After 22 days it regenerated a new body just from the head. The heart and gills are inside the body so they do survive without either for a few days.

Humpback whales and barnacles have the comensulate relationship. 450 lb of barnacles have been removed from them. They do not impact the whale at all but the barnacle thrives.

Pearl fish live inside the sea cucumber and they enter and exit through the sea cucumber's butt while eating its internal organs. Apparently sea cucumbers shoot out their internal organs to shoot themselves away from predators.

Remora likes to suck onto other marine animals than they hitch rides on. They will eat food scraps from their host.

Pygmy seahorse live inside the gorgonian sea fans. If moved to a new sea fan, they will change their color to the new sea fan.

Lions mane jellyfish can be up to 7 feet in size. They are the largest jellyfish in the world. Their tentacles can be 120 feet in diameter.

Isopods and fish are a parasitism relationship. They will go into the fish gill and into the fish mouth and act as their tongue because they will eat the fish's tongue.

Sea lice infect whale and farmed fish.

Flat worms are a parasite on corals.

Nematode worms are a parasite on anchovies and nematode worms can be passed to humans.

Greenland sharks can live for over 500 years and can get the copepod parasite on their eyes.

Sunfish will go to the top and bottom of the ocean about 40 times per day. They can have up to 56 different parasites. Their parasites can have parasites. They will lay on their side on the ocean waiting for a seabird to rid them from parasites.Læs mere