This text provides a modern synthesis of our knowledge of symbiosis, from the molecular mechanisms underlying the establishment and function of symbioses to the ecological and evolutionary impact of such associations. It provides a clear introduction to symbiosis for undergraduate courses.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the third International Workshop on Symbiotic Interaction, Symbiotic 2014, held in Helsinki, Finland, in October 2014. The 8 full papers and 5 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 16 submissions. They are organized in topical sections named: definitions of symbiotic interaction; reviews of implicit interaction; example applications; experimenting with users; and demos and posters.

Throughout the natural world, organisms have responded to predators, inadequate resources, or inclement conditions by forming ongoing mutually beneficial partnerships--or symbioses--with different species. Symbiosis is the foundation for major evolutionary events, such as the emergence of eukaryotes and plant eating among vertebrates, and is also a crucial factor in shaping many ecological communities. The Symbiotic Habit provides an accessible and authoritative introduction to symbiosis, describing how symbioses are established, function, and persist in evolutionary and ecological time. Angela Douglas explains the evolutionary origins and development of symbiosis, and illustrates the principles of symbiosis using a variety of examples of symbiotic relationships as well as nonsymbiotic ones, such as parasitic or fleeting mutualistic associations. Although the reciprocal exchange of benefit is the key feature of symbioses, the benefits are often costly to provide, causing conflict among the partners. Douglas shows how these conflicts can be managed by a single controlling organism that may selectively reward cooperative partners, control partner transmission, and employ recognition mechanisms that discriminate between beneficial and potentially harmful or ineffective partners. The Symbiotic Habit reveals the broad uniformity of symbiotic process across many different symbioses among organisms with diverse evolutionary histories, and demonstrates how symbioses can be used to manage ecosystems, enhance food production, and promote human health.

This book constitutes the proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Symbiotic Interaction, Symbiotic 2015, held in Berlin, Germany, in October 2015. The 11 full papers and 8 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 23 submissions. The papers present an overview of the symbiotic relationships between humans and computers as well as novel advancements. The idea of symbiotic systems put forward in this workshop capitalises on the computers’ ability to implicitly detect the users goals and psycho-physiological states and thereby enhancing human-computer interaction (HCI). A special focus of this year’s Symbiotic Workshop will be on physiological computing approaches, e.g. using brain-computer interface (BCI) technology.

This book is published open access under a CC BY license.​ This book constitutes the proceedings of the 5th International Workshop on Symbiotic Interaction, Symbiotic 2016, held in Padua, Italy, in October 2016. The 12 full papers and 3 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 23 submissions. The idea of symbiotic systems put forward in this workshop capitalizes on the computers’ ability to implicitly detect the users goals, preferences or/and psycho-physiological states and thereby enhancing human-computer interaction (HCI). The papers present an overview of the symbiotic relationships between humans and computers with emphasis on user-driven research on symbiotic systems, adaptive systems, implicit input data, physiological computing and BCI, but also on understanding the nature of the interdependence and agency between computers and humans more broadly.