Wednesday, June 12, 2019

HEMIPARASITES BENEFIT THEIR HOSTS AT THE SPECIES AND ECOSYSTEM LEVELS


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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1 comment:

  1. 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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