Interference Competition and High Temperatures Reduce the Virulence of Fig Wasps and Stabilize a Fig-Wasp Mutualism
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چکیده
منابع مشابه
Interference Competition and High Temperatures Reduce the Virulence of Fig Wasps and Stabilize a Fig-Wasp Mutualism
Fig trees are pollinated by fig wasps, which also oviposit in female flowers. The wasp larvae gall and eat developing seeds. Although fig trees benefit from allowing wasps to oviposit, because the wasp offspring disperse pollen, figs must prevent wasps from ovipositing in all flowers, or seed production would cease, and the mutualism would go extinct. In Ficus racemosa, we find that syconia ('f...
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Fig trees are important components of tropical forests, because their fruits are eaten by so many vertebrates, but they depend on pollinating fig wasps to produce mature fruits. Disturbance to habitat structure can have a major impact on insect diversity and composition, potentially reducing fruit yields. We investigated the impact of habitat disturbance on the fig wasp community associated wit...
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Theory predicts that mutualisms should be vulnerable to invasion by cheaters, yet mutualistic interactions are both ancient and diverse. What prevents one partner from reaping the benefits of the interaction without paying the costs? Using field experiments and observations, we examined factors affecting mutualism stability in six fig tree-fig wasp species pairs. We experimentally compared the ...
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ژورنال
عنوان ژورنال: PLoS ONE
سال: 2009
ISSN: 1932-6203
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007802