Invasion of non-native species can lead to ecosystem shifts
- January 28, 2024
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN Topics
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Invasion of non-native species can lead to ecosystem shifts
Subject: Environment
Section: Biodiversity
Context:
- At a Kenyan conservancy, the invasive big-headed ant species disrupted a mutualism between native ants and acacia trees, in which the native ants protected trees from grazers in exchange for a place to live.
Details:
- When the invasive ants pushed out the native ants, the trees were left vulnerable to overgrazing by elephants, who browsed and broke trees at five to seven times the rate in areas with invasive ants.
- Due to a more open landscape, lions were left without hiding places to stalk their preferred prey zebras.
Mutualism:
- Mutualism is simply described as a relationship in which both species benefit from one another.
- This relationship might exist either inside a species or between two species.
- All living organisms, including humans, animals, birds, plants, and other microbes such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi, have a mutual interaction.
Types of Mutualism:
Obligate mutualism |
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Facultative mutualism |
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Trophic mutualism |
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Defensive mutualism |
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Dispersive mutualism |
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Significance of Mutualism:
- Around 80% of terrestrial plant species rely on mycorrhizal partnerships with fungi to provide them with inorganic compounds and trace elements, making mutualistic interactions critical for the terrestrial ecosystem function.
- The proportion of tropical rainforest plants that have seed dispersal mutualisms with animals is estimated to be between 70 and 93.5 per cent.
- Furthermore, mutualism is assumed to have fueled the evolution of much of the biological diversity we see today, including flower shapes (which are necessary for pollination mutualisms) and species co-evolution.
- Mutualism has also been linked to significant evolutionary events such as the formation of the eukaryotic cell and plant-mycorrhizal fungal colonization of land.
Source: TH