epibioticadj.n.
/ɛpɪbʌɪˈɒtɪk/ 1.
a. adj. Designating one of a few isolated plants or animals that are members of an otherwise extinct population of a species.
ΚΠ
1930 H. N. Ridley Dispersal of Plants p. xviii Many plants..become scarce, then Epibiotic, then perhaps disappeared entirely.
b. n. An epibiotic organism.
ΚΠ
1930 H. N. Ridley Dispersal of Plants p. xviii A number of..plants of limited area, however, are the relics of an earlier flora which has nearly disappeared from change of climate or environment. These are known as Epibiotics, or survivors.
1947 R. F. Daubenmire Plants & Environment x. 377 A species may suffer one or more catastrophes which destroy all but a fragment of the total population. The remnants are called relics, epibiotics, or depleted species.
2. n. See quot. 1960.
ΚΠ
1960 I. F. Henderson & W. D. Henderson Dict. Sci. Terms (ed. 7) 165/1 Epibiotic,..growing on the exterior of living organisms.
1965 V. A. Dogiel Gen. Protozool. (ed. 2) x. 574 The great majority of Protozoa of the plankton are free-living. Among them only a few epibionts belonging to the Suctoria lead an attached mode of life... The total number of such epibiotic forms is limited to a few dozen.
1967 Oceanogr. & Marine Biol. 5 518 The most characteristic species may be the following..: the sponge Thenea muricata (with its epibiotic zoanthid Parazoanthus marioni); [etc.].
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1972; most recently modified version published online March 2018).
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adj.n.1930