Dear Geraldo,

It is possible for certain tree species (e.g. Acer sp., Querqus sp., Prunus sp., Salix sp., etc.) to have their trunks, branches or roots grow closely until they make physical contact and have their vascular tissues join together, through the process called Inosculation, or Natural Grafting. Inosculation may happen cross-species or between the same species. They may share water and mineral nutrients, and consequently help each other. It is also possible for plants to exchange nutrients through soil mycorrhizae.

Regards,

Maurício Ferreira

Extra intersting question from geraldo. Yeah, Mauricio, but is'nt it Symbiotic relations due to it permanent result ? Protocooperation or mutualism means short term bi-directional contact. Moreover, protocooperation is a step for formation of mutualism over stabilisation in long term perspective.. Look, e.g., nepenthes Rajah and shrew in N. Borneo Kota Kinabalu (I want to visit this year), sometimes can use other rodents, but other are protocooperators, only one species of local shrew is mutualist. I'm just righting book in Biocoenology, so this difference is critically important. That's the reason, that climing and climbing plant species cannot propose like examples of mutualistic spatial or temporal relations, as relations, except of trophical can be spatial and temporal!

So, if any, should see in mooving plants, and I do not hesitate that exist some but rare...

But, anyway, your example is the very interesting, can give some reference, where can finf this information?

Andrey

Dear

Mauricio and Andrey

I thank your ideias.

I should highlight that mutualism and protoccoperation are, by definition, interactions in which the partners present higher performance (reproduction, survival) with the interaction than without the interaction.

Thus, I have doubts that advantages could be demonstrated in the case of Natural Grafting. But is a interesting issue to investigate. The same could be the case of climbing and their support plants. Notwithstanding, a possibility that occurs to me is a vine species of Fabaceae that present biological nitrogen fixation (e.g. Acacia) and a tree species that act as a support, but only in the case that the tree presents advantage with that liana species. To be demonstrated!

Kind Regards

Dear Geraldo,

you may want to have a look at Pugnaire et al. 1996, Ecology (Vol 77, pp. 1420-1426). They showed mutual benefits of co-occurring Retama and Marrubium plants. A short discussion based on examples of mutual benefits can also be found in Schöb et al. 2014, New Phytologist (Vol. 202, pp. 95-105) and in Schöb et al. 2014, New Phytologist (Vol. 204, pp. 386-396). These two papers also provide some references to other examples. In sum, there are some examples, even though the phenomenon may not be extremely common.

Cheers,

Christian

There was a previous thread on ResearchGate on this topic:

https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_anybody_provide_an_example_of_mutualistic_plant-plant_interaction).

The answers were not particularly illuminating, but perhaps you could open a conversation with Guido Lingua.

Check also this paper: http://www.nature.com/articles/srep14710

Cheers

Thanks Truman for you redirection,

I just wrote a letter for Guido, but I thing that should precise the capacity of the concept "protocooperation", and mutualism. I thought always that this is relation of "independent" species, but "independent" means that every unit of relation can stop contact. Isn't it?

Andrey

Dear All,

due to kind redirection of Truman I got interesting letter from Guido Lingua. But he did'nt find this our forum, so right me directly over e-mail. I wrote for him URL, so he will find now I hope. But the question of mutualistic relations is so interesting, that I'm giving my reply for him here as well.

Dear Guido,

Thanks for your interesting reply. May be we can start the new discussion in RG about pollinators…

Your approach is classical. De Bary in his famous article (my German is enough poor, but I translated couple paragraphs, where the question is emphasized into English) is based on the concept of van Beneden. So,

The most famous and most exquisite manifestation of the symbiosis is the complete parasitism, i.e., of those means, in which an Animal or a Plant have the whole growing process in the body of  another a non-name Species members – the Host. The latter, in every sense of the word host, is used by  the parasite exclusively as a place of residence and provides him his entire nutrient material, and it lives at the expense of the hosts, that is a nutrient material of the living body substance or to feed ingested food by the host.

And for me is clear, that de Bary understood under symbiosis practically all interspecific relations.

And what he had been writing about mutualism:

Many of the smaller animals inhabit larger and live of the waste of the latter: from the epidermis parts, feathers, hair, etc. such as the numerous types of Trichodectes (canine chewing louse) and Philopterids (chewing lice mostly parasitic on birds), of the dead mucous membrane of the skin of the fish secrete, such as the Argulus (fish lice), inter alia, as van Beneden's are mutualists (Mutualisten) to the hosts, which inhabit them, in a relation of mutual promotion, providing support to the waste of this food, or the same like "use the toilet".

About poliinators. Every relation has it time-scale. As well, mutualistic r. can be short and long scaled. But even if m. r. is deadly important for one of participants every can get out from contact because the every good if too much is bad. Note, that mutual or reciprocal – both have profit – like a marriage – if no can get out! I did it twice, so have direct mutualistic experience.

I’m attaching a Chapter of my book (under prep.) "Biocoenology with basic Parasitology from the point of view of Ecologist". It is in Ukrainian (may be first ed. will be Ukrainian for students) but pay attention on the pp. 34 & 35 schemes, and p. 104 where is modern definition and approach to mutualism. If necessary, will translate for colleagues.

Respect,

Andrey

Dear Andrey, 

Your text seems interesting, maybe I could translate to Portuguese...I appreciate texts with historical background.