Mutualism and SymbiosisFrom The Princeton Guide to Ecology
Excerpt: "Interspecific interactions are most commonly classified according to their effects on the two species. The effect of any given interaction on a population attribute (usually either population growth or fitness) of a given species can be positive (+), negative (–), or neutral (0). Thus, there are six possible pairwise outcomes, commonly referred to as mutualism (+,+), competition (-,-), commensalism (+,0), neutralism (0,0), amensalism (-,0), and predation, parasitism, and herbivory (+,-). This classification is based on discrete [+, -, 0] effects on each of the interacting populations. As will be discussed in what follows, however, divisions among different forms of interspecific interactions are not nearly so black and white: effects actually range continuously from positive to negative in interesting and important ways."