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What is commensalism?

      

What is commensalism?

  

Answers


Francis
Commensalism is a type of symbiosis, specifically, a biological relationship in which one species benefits from an interaction, while the host species is neither positively nor negatively affected to any tangible degree.
For example; epiphytic plants (which grow on other plants but are not parasitic); gain an enormous ecological benefit from living on larger plants, because they gain access to a substrate upon which to grow relatively high in the canopy. The host trees, however, are not affected in any significant way by this relationship even in cases when they are supporting what appears to be a large population epiphytes. Some plants are specialized as epiphytes, for example, many species of air plants or bromeliads (family Bromeliaceae), orchids (Orchidaceae), and ferns (Pterophyta). Many lichens, mosses, and liverworts are also epiphytes on trees.
francis1897 answered the question on February 27, 2023 at 13:18


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