Fig Wasp Chronicles: A Tiny Insect’s Extraordinary Life
Fig, plant of the mulberry family, often refers to its edible fruits. When we open a fig, we often see many black bugs inside. But they are not any normal ants or bugs, they are a special insects called fig wasp.
There is a mutualistic relationship between fig and fig wasp. How is this mutualism relationship works? Wasp matures from eggs deposited in the syconium, flowering part of the fig. When a wasp egg is deposited in one of the female flowers, flower developed a gall-like structure instead of a seed. Then, the wingless male wasp will emerge from the gall and begin to searching female wasp in other gall. Once finding one female wasp, the male wasp will mate with her even before she has even hatched. The male wasp will then die, spend his entire life inside the fig.
The impregnated female wasp will proceed to the escape tunnel of the fig. On the way of the female wasp departing from the fig, she will be covered with fig pollen from the male flower. She will spend rest of her adult life in finding another female fig. Once the female fig finds one, female wasp will lay egg inside but she will become wingless and trapped forever. During this process, she has pollinated the flowers. The female wasp’s body will be then breakdown by enzymes from fig’s body, providing nutrients for developing fig seeds.
In the two decades since Janzen described how to be a fig, more than 200 papers have appeared on fig wasps and their host plants figs. Fig pollination is now widely regarded as a model system for the study of coevolved mutualism in biology. There are many research on the sex ratio, coevolution, population genetics of the fig wasp. If you want to learn more about this marvel creature, feel free to subscribe and stay up to date for future blogs!
Reference
fig | Description, History, Cultivation, & Types. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/plant/fig
Fig wasp | insect. (2019). In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/animal/fig-wasp
Varient. (2023, August 3). Fig Wasp Life Cycle: Mutualistic Relationship with Common, Caprifig, and Mamone Fig Trees. Varient. https://www.figdatabase.com/fignews/fig-wasp-life-cycle-mutualistic-relationship-with-common-caprifig-and-mamone-fig-trees
Weiblen, G. D. (2002). How to be a Fig Wasp. Annual Review of Entomology, 47(1), 299–330. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ento.47.091201.145213