32 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
32 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Obligate"
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chunk: 1/1
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source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obligate"
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category: "reference"
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tags: "science, encyclopedia"
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date_saved: "2026-05-05T07:16:05.776718+00:00"
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instance: "kb-cron"
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---
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As an adjective, obligate means "by necessity" (antonym facultative) and is used mainly in biology in phrases such as:
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Obligate aerobe, an organism that cannot survive without oxygen
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Obligate anaerobe, an organism that cannot survive in the presence of oxygen
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Obligate air-breather, a term used in fish physiology to describe those that respire entirely from the atmosphere
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Obligate biped, an animal that relies solely on walking or running on its two hind limbs for locomotion
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Obligate carnivore, an organism dependent for survival on a diet of animal flesh.
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Obligate chimerism, a kind of organism with two distinct sets of DNA, always
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Obligate hibernation, a state of inactivity in which some organisms survive conditions of insufficiently available resources.
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Obligately intracellular parasite, a parasitic microorganism that cannot reproduce without entering a suitable host cell
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Obligate necrophage, an animal that uses carrion as its sole or main food source and depends on carrion for survival or reproduction
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Obligate parasite, a parasite that cannot reproduce without exploiting a suitable host
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Obligate photoperiodic plant, a plant that requires sufficiently long or short nights before it initiates flowering, germination or similarly functions
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Obligate scavenger, an animal that uses decaying biomass (e.g. carrion, dead plant material) as its sole or main food source and depends on this for survival or reproduction
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Obligate symbionts, organisms that can only live together in a symbiosis
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== See also ==
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Opportunism (biological)
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== References == |