Facultative

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Facultative means "optional" or "discretionary" (antonym obligate), used mainly in biology in phrases such as:

  • Facultative (FAC), facultative wetland (FACW), or facultative upland (FACU): wetland indicator statuses for plants
  • Facultative anaerobe, an organism that can use oxygen but also has anaerobic methods of energy production. It can survive in either environment
  • Facultative biotroph, an organism, often a fungus, that can live as a saprotroph but also form mutualisms with other organisms at different times of its life cycle.
  • Facultative biped, an animal that is capable of walking or running on two legs as well as walking or running on four limbs or more, as appropriate
  • Facultative carnivore, a carnivore that does not depend solely on animal flesh for food but also can subsist on non-animal food. Compare this with the term omnivore
  • Facultative heterochromatin, tightly packed but non-repetitive DNA in the form of Heterochromatin, but which can lose its condensed structure and become transcriptionally active
  • Facultative lagoon, a type of stabilization pond used in biological treatment of industrial and domestic wastewater
  • Facultative parasite, a parasite that can complete its life cycle without depending on a host
  • Facultative photoperiodic plant, a plant that will eventually flower regardless of night length but is more likely to flower under appropriate light conditions.
  • Facultative saprophyte, lives on dying, rather than dead, plant material
  • facultative virus

See also

  • (antonym) Obligate
  • Opportunism (Biology)
Topics referred to by the same term
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