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obligate in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
As an adjective, obligate means "by necessity" (antonym
facultative ) and is used mainly in biology in phrases such as:
Obligate aerobe , an organism that cannot survive without oxygen
Obligate anaerobe , an organism that cannot survive in the presence of oxygen
Obligate air-breather, a term used in
fish physiology to describe those that respire entirely from the atmosphere
Obligate biped,
Bipedalism designed to walk on two legs
Obligate carnivore , an organism dependent for survival on a diet of animal flesh.
Obligate chimerism , a kind of organism with two distinct sets of DNA, always
Obligate hibernation , a state of inactivity in which some organisms survive conditions of insufficiently available resources.
Obligate intracellular parasite , a parasitic microorganism that cannot reproduce without entering a suitable host cell
Obligate parasite , a parasite that cannot reproduce without exploiting a suitable host
Obligate
photoperiodic plant , a plant that requires sufficiently long or short nights before it initiates flowering, germination or similarly functions
Obligate symbionts , organisms that can only live together in a
symbiosis
See also