In all corners of the world, different species coexist and contribute to the life cycle. What about the animals that work together to survive? How did that even begin?

A symbiotic relationship refers to any sort of relationship two animals have with each other, the three main types being mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism. Mutualistic relationships involve interactions between species that benefit from one another; these relationships can take just several generations to millions of years to form, taking longer when it involves one animal living inside the other.

An example of a mutualistic relationship is found between humans and dogs. According to fossil remains, it is estimated that the dogs we know today were domesticated around 15,000 years ago in Northern Eurasia and Siberia, and it took several thousand years for Siberian wolves to evolve into dogs. Dogs were used for hunting and protection and were cared for by humans. Symbiotic relationships can also be found within humans–mutualistic relationships involve the bacteria in the gut, and aggressive cancer is parasitism, where cancerous cells benefit from nutrients and energy at the expense of the person’s health.

These relationships form when two species live and survive in close proximity and survive better with the habits of the other. Through natural selection, which is a process where animals or plants with desirable traits adapt to their environment better than others and reproduce to pass on these desirable traits, those that worked better with other species survived and the trend of relying on the other animal continued. This idea can be expressed through the phrase survival of the fittest, inspired by Charles Darwin’s work on evolution. 

Clownfish and anemones have a mutualistic relationship. Sea anemones are animals closely related to coral and jellyfish, and they hunt small fish, crabs, and shrimp. They use their tentacles capable of stinging animals passing by, essentially stunning their prey and using the tentacles to push the prey into their mouth at the center. Clownfish have developed a way around this by slowly adapting themselves to the anemone: when young, clownfish brush up their chosen anemone and slowly develop a resistance to the anemone’s venom.

An unusual mutualistic relationship humans have is with the bottlenose dolphin. On the southern coast of Brazil, bottlenose dolphins gather schools of fish and push them into shallow waters. With a certain flick or splash with their tail, they signal fishermen to throw out their nets. As the fish become disoriented trying to escape the net, dolphins have an easy time catching strays. 

You can see and learn more about symbiotic relationships at the Boca Aquarium, including clownfish and anemones, pistol shrimp and their gobies, and coral and zooxanthellae! I’m shore you’ll love it!

Written by Val