Half shower thought, half stoner thought. It may seem obvious, but I was dwelling on the point for a while, deeper and deeper.

We exist in a symbiotic relationship with nature, a sort of balanced trade of breaths. Trees release oxygen which we breathe in to survive, and in return, we release carbon dioxide that fuels their photosynthesis. In this manner, we are locked in a reciprocal, almost parasitic yet mutually beneficial relationship with nature.

We are entwined in an unending dance with the natural world, each sustaining the one other.

✌️💛

  • LachlanUnchained@lemmyunchained.netOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    1 year ago

    Happy to be labelled stupid. But yeh. Dunno what pills you’re taking.

    Your grasp of the basic definitions of parasitism and mutualism is great 👍, but it seems you’re refusing to acknowledge the complexities and nuances of biological relationships.

    These are not static, black-and-white definitions. Nature isn’t a simple dichotomy of “mutualism here, parasitism there”. It’s a continuum of interactions that evolve and change with conditions.

    Consider the cleaner fish as an example. It’s an illustration of facultative mutualism. The fish provides a service by removing parasites from a host fish—a clear case of mutualism. But what happens when the cleaner fish starts taking bites of the host’s flesh, causing harm? Suddenly, this mutualistic interaction turns parasitic.

    • bucho@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      1 year ago

      If the fish continues cleaning parasites, then it is still mutualistic. If the “host” benefits from the relationship overall, then it is mutualistic. If it doesn’t benefit, and is actively harmed by the relationship, then it is parasitic.

      • LachlanUnchained@lemmyunchained.netOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        The conversation seems to be veering into a game of semantics rather than addressing the biological complexity at hand.

        The point isn’t about rigidly sticking to one label or another based on each individual interaction; it’s about acknowledging that the relationship can fluctuate based on various conditions. Therefore, there’s value in having a label that encapsulates this variability, like ‘facultative mutualism’.

        ‘Facultative mutualism’ doesn’t deny the presence of mutualistic or parasitic interactions but acknowledges that the relationship isn’t strictly one or the other. It can fluctuate between the two extremes based on different circumstances, and there’s utility in having a term that covers this variability.

        • bucho@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          You know what? That is fair. You’re right - I was engaging in a purely semantics argument, and I’m sorry about that. It was dumb, and also assholish of me to assume that you didn’t know what the fuck you were talking about and were just pulling things out of thin air. I see the point that it is useful to define relationships on a spectrum with fully parasitic at one end, and fully mutually beneficial at the other.