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Nature of symbiosis between species could be regarded as mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism depending on cost and benefit of host and co-occuring species. Freshwater crayfish have tiny worms called branchiobdellids on their body coinhabiting for considerable amount of time.
An undergrad student of Seoul National Univeristy, Juhyung Lee, and I were curious about the outcome of interaction between freshwater crayfish Cambraroide similis and branchiobdellids. Branchiobdellids did not influence growth rate or morality when cultured under low fouling pressure. However, the growth rate of crafish with branchiobdellids significantly increasesd under higher fouling pressure. The interaction between crayfish and branchobdellids could shift from commensalism to mutualism when fouling pressure of water increases (Lee et al. 2009). This is the one of outstanding studies that have an implication that the outcome of symbiosis could change depending on the changing environments.
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