Objective: Explain the difference between parasitism and predation.
Parasitism is the act of absorbing nutrients and coopting biological mechanisms for feeding and reproduction from a host plant or animal. The parasite cannot survive on its own and reduces the health of its host, usually creating the need of the parasite to move quickly to a new host before the original host dies. These activities are similar, but not the same in organisms that have symbiotic relationships. In symbiosis, an organism seeks out another organism that offers necessary food or biological mechanisms for reproduction, however, the difference is in a symbiotic relationship both organisms benefit from the relationship. However, if one species outgrows a symbiotic relationship it can become a parasite. Parasites usually live on the host until it is dead or too diseased to benefit the parasite, while predation is the purposeful hunting and harvesting of an organism for consumption of nutrients. Predation, in the natural law theme, usually culls out the slower members of a group. (DeWitt)
Objective: Explain how symbiotic relationships may evolve.
Indigenous people have symbiotic relationships with the environment and evolve together. Some species and systems become dependent on the human populations’ activities. We are dependent on the environment for clothing, sustenance, shelter, implements, recreation, and spirituality. The ecosystem, if people are there long enough, creates equilibrium. Once a contributing species is removed from the ecosystem or no longer fulfills its role then the ecosystem becomes imbalanced for a period of time, as long as there are no other influencing factors a new state of equilibrium will be created. (DeWitt)