I have always thought of the Falls Creek community as a symbiotic circle, with Falls Creek Ski Lifts (Lift Co., also known as Vail Resorts since they purchased Lift Co. in 2020), ARV (Alpine Resorts Victoria) and the independent stakeholders existing in a symbiotic relationship. Symbiosis is a term describing any relationship or interaction between two dissimilar organisms. The specific kind of symbiosis depends on the type of relationship the organisms engage in.
I have thought deeply about the nature of symbiotic relationships these past few years. My brain keeps coming back to the analogy of Falls Creek as a symbiotic marine ecosystem, which is one I’ve used before.
According to National Geographic, there are five main symbiotic relationships: mutualism, commensalism, predation, parasitism, and competition. Depending on who you are talking to at the time, three of these relationships provide the foundations upon which our little village rests.
To paraphrase the National Geographic article “Symbiosis: The Art of Living Together.” To explore these relationships, let’s consider Falls Creek as a natural ecosystem and compare it to the ocean. Oceanic environments are known for their species diversity.
If we were swimming in the warm waters of the Pacific or Indian Oceans instead of sitting on top of a hill, we’d perhaps see an excellent example of mutualism: the relationship between clownfish and sea anemones. In a mutualistic relationship, both species benefit.
As we dive deeper into our imaginary tour of the ocean, we could observe the commensalistic relationship that exists between barnacles and humpback whales. Commensalism happens when one species lives with, on, or in another species, known as the host. The host species neither benefits nor is harmed from the relationship.
Of course, some symbiotic relationships do cause harm. In predation, one species (the predator) hunts and kills another species (the prey). One of the better studied predators in the oceans is the orca, or killer whale.
Another harmful relationship is parasitism. This happens when one species (the parasite) lives with, on, or in a host species, at the expense of the host species. Unlike in predation, the host is not immediately killed by the parasite, though it may sicken and die over time. Examples of common parasites found in the ocean include nematodes, leeches, and barnacles.
The last example of symbiosis I will explore on our fictional expedition is competition - the struggle among organisms for the same limited resources in an ecosystem. Competition can happen between members of the same species (intraspecific competition) and between different species (interspecific competition). An example of interspecific competition in the ocean is the relationship between corals and sponges. Sponges are very abundant in coral reefs. If they become too successful, however, they take needed food and other resources from the corals that make up the reef. Sponges may out-compete corals for resources in the short term, but if too many corals die, the reef itself becomes damaged. This is bad for the sponges, which may themselves begin to die off until the reef is balanced again.
Symbiotic relationships can be useful measures of an ecosystem’s health. So how does a marine biology lesson up in the Victorian Alps relate to the Falls Creek community?
We all exist in the Falls Creek ecosystem together, at the same time. Our symbiotic relationships, immaterial of the types, bind us together irrelevant of whether you are a government body, a multinational corporation or independent stakeholders.
As in the ocean, Falls Creek has every type of organism within our tiny ecosystem. Clownfish and sea anemones, humpback whales and barnacles, orcas and leeches, corals and sponges. I’ll let you, dear reader, play ‘guess who’.
It’s easy for us to miscategorise a symbiotic relationship as positive when we find ourselves caught in an ocean rip. What is less difficult to misinterpret is when relationships become toxic, or to continue the analogy, parasitic.
When I think about what I have loved about Falls Creek over time, I think of the mutualistic, commensalistic and competitive relationships that make up this little slice of the alps. We are better when we exist in harmonious competition. We all have a purpose on the hill. We all have the capacity to positively contribute to the health of our ecosystem for the benefit of Falls Creek as a whole. When even one relationship becomes parasitic, the community becomes unbalanced, and the subsequent loss of symbiosis impacts the health of all those remaining.
Balance is key. In communities, snowsport and in business.
Cheers, Nyree Fiddes
Go inside the Powderkeg airlock from the Plaza, go down the stairs, turn left at the bottom of the stairs. Voila!
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/symbiosis-art-living-together/