1. Soil Moisture Levels and the Porcellio Scaber
Plants are seen to have many different reactions with other plants and organisms who are all looking for the same thing: nutrients that provides energy for basic cellular processes. Bacteria form mutualistic relationships with pea plants, while collard greens purposefully grow near pea plants to get nutrients from the other plant. A mutualistic relationship means that they do not hurt the plant but provide the plant with nutrients that it can benefit from. Whereas in commensalism, one species benefits, and the other is harmed. Moreover, in parasitism one species benefits, and the other is harmed. Rhizobia are a type of bacteria that form a mutualistic relationship with the root nodules of pea plants. This type of soil bacteria resides in the root nodules of pea plants. .
The root bacteria, Rhizobia, provide the pea plant with nutrients that the plant can use through nitrogen fixation. Moreover, Rhizobia require a plant host, they cannot independently fix nitrogen. This process of fixing nitrogen, and furthermore, providing the plant with nitrogenous compounds help the plant to grow and compete with other plants. The process of fixing nitrogen occurs when nitrogen (N2) in the atmosphere is converted to ammonia (NH3). Because atmospheric nitrogen (N2) is inert, it does not easily react with other chemicals to form new compounds, and so the fixation process frees up nitrogen atoms from their diatomic form (N2) to be used in many different ways by the plant. One of these ways in which the atoms of atmospheric nitrogen (N2) are used in other ways by the plant is through the conversion of N2 to NH3. The benefit of nitrogen fixation is that it is produces a natural and synthetic compound that is essential for all forms of life. More specifically, nitrogen is required to undergo biosynthesis, a process in which substrates are converted into more complex products and so, enzyme catalyzation occurs, using the basic building blocks of plants in order to do so.