Question

Because you have always been fascinated by spiders and bacteria, you decide to study the microbiome of a species of spider that is locally abundant. You are able to cultivate many bacteria from the spiders gut in the lab, and the spiders do not appear to be negatively affected by treatment with antibiotics that you know will inhibit the growth of these bacteria. Based on this evidence, which of the following types of symbiotic relationships do you suspect might be occurring between the spider and the bacteria?

a.Cooperative

b.Mutualistic

c.Commensalistic

d. Ammensalistic

Answer 1

The right answer is c. commensalistic

Step-by-step explanation:

Commensalism is a type of relationship between two individuals in which one of the individuals becomes benefitted from the other individual and the other individual is not harmed and even not get benefitted from the counterpart.

So, in this case, the bacteria that were living in the spider's gut are benefitted because they got space and environment to live and the spider is not harmed and benefitted because there is no negative effect of presence and absence of bacteria on spider's health which was proved by antibiotic treatment.

Therefore commensalistic relationship might be occurring between spider and the bacteria. So the correct answer is c.