Question

read the passage. then answer the question. termites are small insects that eat wood. but they cannot completely digest the wood on their own. to help digest the wood, some termites rely on organisms called protists that live in their guts. these protists are microscopic, or too small to see without the aid of a microscope. when the protists digest the wood, they get energy and nutrients. without protists in its gut, a termite would not be able to use wood for food, so it would starve to death. a termite eating dead wood which type of relationship is formed when protists live in a termites gut? commensal mutualistic parasitic

Explanation:

In a mutualistic relationship, both organisms benefit. Termites cannot digest wood alone, and the protists in their guts help with digestion. The protists get energy and nutrients from digesting the wood, and the termites can use wood as food because of the protists. So both the termites and the protists benefit. In a commensal relationship, one organism benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed. In a parasitic relationship, one organism (the parasite) benefits at the expense of the other (the host).

Answer:

B. mutualistic