Aquatic ecology and Biodiversity

Unit 8- Animal associations and interactions

8.3. Benthic associations
The animals and plants bring about fundamental changes in the marine environment due to their activities.

• Burrowing organisms worms, molluscs, crustaceans
• Boring organism- bivalve, crustaceans
• Accumulating organism biological oozes
• Depositing organisms worms, polychaetes

Benthic communities

• Macoma community
• Tellina – Donax community
• Venus community
• Syndosmya community
• Dendraster community
• Amphiura community

In any environment, no organism can be able to live alone without having interaction with other organisms. The interaction of one species with another is essentially important for the purposes of obtaining food and shelter and for meeting other necessary requirements. Hence, animals have interactions with other animals, plants and even some plants are dependent upon animals.
Interrelations may exist between species of widely different kinds and sizes. The interaction or inter-dependence or inter-relationship between the individuals of the same species is known as intra-specific relationship and the relationship between the organisms of different species is termed as inter-specific relationship. Here the inter-specific relationship is alone will be discussed.
There are two types of inter-specific relations viz. symbiosis and antagonism. In symbiosis either one or both the species are benefited but neither species is harmed while in antagonism, any one of the partner species is harmed.