Symbiosis by Elyssa Erickson

Symbiosis, according to Wikipedia.com is “a close and often long-term interaction between different biological species.” In other words it’s a relationship between two organisms of different biological species where the relationship is either mutualism (Both the symbiotic and host benefit), parasitism (The symbiotic benefits to the detriment of the host), and predation (The symbiotic benefits to the death of the host). Mutualism, in case you don’t already know, is when both of the organisms are fine with the other, they don’t care. However, in parasitism one is happy while the other one is sad, will become weary and eventually will die. Finally there is predation, this is when one of the organisms in the relationship is happy and benefits of the other, however, seeing as it is predation the other is dead. You shouldn’t however confuse these as being the same as symbiosis.

We find ourselves asking how water pollution affects symbiosis and realize that when water is polluted there are many things that are effected one of them being how symbiosis keeps animals alive in the water. For those who use mutualism it has almost no effect, however if you were to look at those say the predations there is tons of effect. When you are a predator and even a parasite you need things to prey, and live on, well, the more water that is polluted the more and more marine life continue to become sick and die. This means less food for everyone, once again we can realize how important un-polluted water is in our life’s, not only for us but for all animals because no matter what happens something is going to be effected by something else and once it works its way up the chain it is not that easy to undo.