List of symbiotic relationships

This is an incomplete list of notable mutualistic symbiotic relationships, in which different species have a cooperative or mutually dependent relationship.

Some of these relationships are so close that we speak of the composite of two species as one unit; for example, we speak of the composite of algae and fungi as lichens. This is analogous to our speaking of a modulator and a demodulator as a modem.

• Humans and cultivated plants
• Humans and domesticated animals
• Humans and intestinal bacteria
• Humans and the Greater Honeyguide bird (which may have a similar relationship with the Ratel or "honey badger")
• Vascular plants and fungi in mycorrhizae
• Flowering plants and pollinators such as bees and flies
• Leafcutter ants and the fungus they "farm" (note also the third mutualist: a bacterium that secretes a chemical that kills molds that would otherwise feed on the fungus "farmed" by the ants)
• Leafhopper and meat ant
• Acacia Ants (Pseudomyrmex ferruginea) with the Swollen Thorn Acacia Tree (Acacia cornigera)
• Legumes and rhizobia (nitrogen-fixing bacteria)
• Euprymna squid (family Sepiolidae) and bioluminescent bacteria (Vibrio fischeri)
• Anglerfish and bioluminescent bacteria
• Moray eels and cleaner shrimp or cleaner fish at cleaning stations
• Goby fish and shrimp
• Corals and Zooxanthella
• Sea anemones and clownfish, crabs or shrimps (the bright colours of clownfish attract predators; the anemone provides shelter for the clownfish)
• Deep-sea pompeii worms and thermophilic bacteria
• Ruminants such as cows and their intestinal bacteria and protists
• Termites and their intestinal bacteria and protists
• Egyptian Plovers and Nile crocodiles (not scientifically documented, likely purely mythical^[1].)
• Oxpeckers and rhinoceroses
• Polydnavirus and parasitoid wasps
• Cycads and cyanobacteria
• Foraminifera and algae
• Grasses and endophytic fungi
• Sponges and algae
• Aphids and Buchnera bacteria^[2]
• Azolla (water fern) and Anabaena (cyanobacteria)
• Ambrosia Beetles and fungi
• Sharks and remora- commensalism
• Fig trees and Amazon fruit bats
• Wombats and snails (mutualism)
• Lichen (mutualism)
• Mycorrhizzae and White Oak (mutualism)
• Mole salamanders and Oophila alga (mutualism)
• Squirrel and a tree (commensalism)
• Sea anemone and clownfish (mutualism)
• Mangrove Finches and Mangroves in the Galapagos
• Hawaiian Bobtail Squid and Vibrio fischeri
• Coyote and American Badger
• Simarouba amara: The small yellow flowers are thought to be pollinated by insects, the resulting fruits are dispersed by animals including monkeys, birds and fruit bats and the seeds are dispersed by leaf cutter ants.
• Olive baboon and African elephant

See also

• List of symbiotic organisms

Sharks and Fish that eat algae off them.

References