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Plants

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Plants' experience with inter-species relationships are often detrimental only to the plants, though the argument often made is that plants and herbivores experience the predator-prey cycle, wherein herbivores consume too many of the plants, and in turn, the herbivore population decreases due to lack of available sustenance, giving the plants time to recover their numbers. Part of the quest of plants towards their Maximal Greatness is 

Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants with leaves that have evolved to form something called a pitfall trap. Pitcher plants have specialized leaves that for a deep well-like structure that features digestive liquid at the bottom.The plant uses nectar to lure the insects in, and then tiny hairs on the lip of the plant roll the insect into the pitfall trap, where it is drowned and digested. What is fascinating about pitcher plants is that they have learned to allow bats to sleep inside their pitfall traps without digesting them during the daytime, and in turn, the bats defecate inside the pitfall traps. The pitcher plants then digest the feces, and have an easily accessible, reliable source of sustenance.



The Swollen Thorn Acacia trees take care of Pseudomyrmex ferrugineus ants in another symbiotic relationship. The tree provides shelter in the hollows of its thorns, and produces a kind of sap that the ants eat that contains enzymes that disallow it's consumers to ingest any other type of sucrose, by blocking the ants' invertase enzyme, which is responsible for digesting the sucrose that makes up a lot of the ants' diet.

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  1. Inter-Species Relationships Sam Henrickson

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