Organizational habitat, the characteristic of which will be considered in our article, differs significantly from all others. What is so special about her? Let's get it together.
Organizational habitat: characteristic
The creatures that live inside living organisms are independent of the presence of light and the gas composition of the atmosphere. The environmental factors that act on them are notable for their constant constancy. Such indicators include, for example, temperature, pressure, humidity, chemical composition. Organizational habitat also involves a fairly limited space.
There is an opinion that creatures living inside or on others do significant harm to them, deplete, cause serious illness and even the death of their owners. Sometimes this is really not without reason. For example, a flatworm pork tapeworm, parasitizing inside the human body, leads to disruption of the nervous system and loss of consciousness. But the amoeba living inside the outgrowth of the stomach of the mollusk woodworm digest cellulose and provide the process of nutrition of the host.
The positive characteristics of the body environment is the constant availability of food, its availability and easily digestible form. A negative feature is an enclosed space with a limited area. This significantly increases the level of competition. That is why large parasitic worms are most often found in the host body in a single quantity. Lack of oxygen also causes greater complexity. This leads to the transition of many species to anaerobic metabolism.
What is symbiosis
Organizational habitat involves various forms of coexistence of various species. They are all called one word - symbiosis. It can be represented by several species. So, with mandatory symbiosis, organisms cannot exist without each other. For example, the fungi that make up the lichen thallus cannot live without cyanobacteria cells. Optional symbiosis is a temporary concept. Such organisms can live both together and separately. Many species of sea shrimp, which clean the fish scale from parasites, coexist only a certain time. Then they painlessly part and live separately. In any case, all symbiotic relationships are based on nutritional relationships.
Parasitic organisms
For plants, animals, fungi and bacteria that feed and live off of others, the basic is precisely the organismic habitat. Examples of such relationships are found in nature quite often. Some of them parasitize on the host’s body. These are lice, ticks, mosquitoes, leeches. Others use organisms also as a home. This group includes flukes, tapeworms and flatworms. They have a number of devices for living in such an environment. So, the chains have special organs of attachment, with the help of which they are fixed in the ducts of the intestines of the host. These parasites lack their own digestive system. As a reproductive system, they are hermaphrodites, which allows them to lead an attached lifestyle.
Features of commensalism
Organizational habitat is suitable for commensals. True, these organisms use only the remnants of food, waste products or housing of the owner, while not causing him tangible harm. It can manifest itself in the form of lodging or parasitism. An example of the first option is the boldest plover bird, which takes out the remnants of food from the teeth of crocodiles. Housewarming favorably uses in its life fresh-water fish, mustard, laying its eggs in the mantle cavity of mollusks.
Mutualistic Relations
The organized living environment of the mutualists provides benefits for both themselves and the owner. Flagellum protozoa in the stomach of termites are reliably protected from the negative effects of the environment and provided with ready-made nutrients. At the same time, they produce enzymes that break down complex carbohydrates. Mutualistic are the relations of sea anemones with clown fish. In this case, the plant is a reliable shelter and protection. Instead, the fish free the predator of the remnants of food. Nodule bacteria that settle on the roots of legumes receive organic matter from them. They themselves fix atmospheric nitrogen and translate it into a state accessible to plants.
So, the features of the organismic habitat consist in the constancy of environmental conditions and partial independence from them. In particular, this applies to species living inside others. Depending on the nature of the nutritional relationships in the body, living things can act as parasites, commensals, or mutualists.