Hemiparasites
Benefit Their Hosts At The Species And Ecosystem Levels
Post #28
Donald
A. Windsor
Hemiparasites
are photosynthetic plants that parasitize free-living plants to
obtain nutrients (1).
Growth
of the host plants can be stunted by the hemiparasites, thus allowing
more sunlight to reach lower growing plants and increasing
biodiversity.
Hemiparasites
benefit prairie ecosystems similar to the way grazing animals do, by
preventing the taller plants from taking over. For this reason they
are sometimes called "pseudograzers" (2).
Individual
hemiparasites harm their individual hosts, but the hemiparasites as
species benefit other species, and the resulting biodiversity
benefits the ecosystem. All species in the ecosystem benefit from
the ecosystem staying intact.
References
cited:
1.
Těšitel, Jakub ; Plavcova, Lenka ; Cameron, Duncan. Interactions
between hemiparasitic plants and their hosts: The importance of
organic carbon transfer. Plant Signaling & Behavior 2010
August; 5(9): 1072-1076.
2.
DiGiovanni, Jane P. ; Wysocki, William P. ; Burke, Sean V. ; Duvall,
Melvin R. ; Barber, Nicholas A. The role of hemiparasitic plants:
influencing tallgrass prairie quality, diversity, and structure.
Restoration Ecology 2017 May; 25(3): 405-413.
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Here in central Victoria Australia we have a hemiparasite - exocarpus cuprissiformus that works to regenerate our post gold rush degraded landscape by drawing down from the dominant eucalyptus species to build soil rather than allow for better light penetration and actually create some shade in the dry open ecosystem
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