Today I chose to walk on the beach in Onset, MA. I thought this would be a good place to observe interactions among species and I was able to capture some examples of predation in seagulls picking on snails on the shore, algae and seaweed growing on shells and crabs, and barnacles growing on shells as well. They were good examples of predation, commensalism, herbivory with birds, and maybe even ammensalism. I found this to be a good change of scenery. When on the beach, I do not often think about different species on the beach and how they interact, but this walk opened my eyes a bit.
Although hard to capture in a picture, this seagull was wandering around the pool and beach area looking to eat hermit crabs and snails. This is predation.
I’m not exactly sure what species of bird this is. I took the framework of herbivory interaction from class and applied it to this bird feeding on algae.
I found a good example of commensalism with this bivalve and algae building up on it. The algae has a host and the clam is likely unaffected by its presence. Additionally the barnacles get a host as well.
Commensalism is shown in this image with barnacles living on this snail! Although barnacles can be harmful, this interaction is neutral for the snail but the barnacle gets a host.
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