Erol Akçay, a biology professor at Penn, recently conducted a research about mutualism in ecosystems. New research from a Penn professor and a Penn alum shows that mutually beneficial relationships ...

Reakirt's blue butterflies were moving among the flower heads of white clover in my lawn. I presumed that they were nectaring, but I watched closely and discovered that they were ovipositing. They ...

The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their ...

Endosymbiotic relationships -- in which one organism lives within another -- are striking examples of mutualism, and can often significantly shape the biology of the participant species. In new ...

In Tanzania, we watched on many occasions when small flocks of red-billed birds descended upon the backs of giraffes, cape buffalo, elephants and hippopotamuses, prancing around like they owned them.

The fig wasp pollination mutualism is a quintessential example of an obligate ecological interaction, wherein minute pollinator wasps and their Ficus hosts engage in an intricate and enduring ...

Many studies of evolution focus on the benefits to the individual of competing successfully -- those who survive produce the most offspring, in Darwin's classic 'survival of the fittest'. But how does ...

When both partners benefit from a relationship—be they husband and wife or pollinator and flower—the relationship is known as a mutualism. But sometimes partners do not deliver their side of the ...