The following article appears at the end of The Breezes of Inspire. For more information on symbiosis, see the links at the end of the article

I need a friend lichen you!

So what have we learned today? Hopefully, you have enjoyed this little adventure and at the same time you've gotten a little taste of a process called "symbiosis." What? I learned something? I've been tricked!

Symbiosis involves two different life forms that live together. Sometimes they help each other and sometimes they don't. In Inspire, the Starion and the moss help each other, and the same kind of thing happens right here in our boring little world. Nature's magic is all around us.

Lichens are one example of symbiosis. A lichen (pronounced liken) is a fungus and an alga living together. (You probably know the alga by its plural name, algae). As a matter of fact, they can't live separately (the Starion could survive without the moss for a while, but eventually would have died). The fungus feeds the alga with water and minerals and the alga provides energy to the fungus through photosynthesis. And that's just one example. The world is full of strange and interesting plants and animals.

Gobies are fish that set up "cleaning stations" for other fish called groupers. The groupers swim over to the gobies, who clean off dead skin cells and eat other little creatures that they find while they work. The grouper gets its skin cleaned and the gobies get a free meal. The groupers get sick without the gobies and the gobies go hungry without the grouper.

It would be great if all living things got along together but that's not the case. Sometimes one living thing just latches onto another and takes what it wants without giving anything back. That's a parasite. I think I'd rather live the life of a lichen (say that real fast a couple of times).

I'm pretty bummed out. I thought my story was pretty imaginative, but nature is even more amazing than anything I can dream up for the worlds of Remin. Wow!

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