Mutualism: When organisms need each other to thrive

Of the symbiotic relationships, mutualism, where both species benefit from the relationship, is the most exciting form. How two disparate species can form a cooperative where both benefit seems like the pinnacle of evolution. Pollinators and plants are perhaps the best and most classic example. Not only is this relationship, where the pollinator gets a nectar reward for distributing the plant’s pollen, a benefit to both, to be sure, but to the rest of the world’s inhabitants as well. According to the United States Department of Agriculture: “Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and about 35 percent of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators to reproduce. That is one out of every three bites of food you eat.” That is pretty dang significant.

Another huge example is the