Wang, RW, Wen, XL, Chen, C et al. (2 more authors) (2015) Spatial heterogeneity and host repression in fig-fig wasp mutualism. Science China Life Sciences, 58 (5). 492 - 500. ISSN 1674-7305
Abstract
It is generally believed that physical heterogeneity in common resource or evolutionary restraint can sufficiently prevent direct conflict between host and symbionts in mutualism systems. Our data on fig/fig wasp reciprocal mutualism (Ficus racemosa), however, show that structural barriers of female flowers or genetic constraints of pollinators previously hypothesized exist, but cannot sufficiently maintain the mutualism stability. The results show that a positive relationship between seed and wasp production could be maintained in warm season, which might be because of density dependence restraint among foundresses and their low oviposition and pollination efficiency, keeping common resource (female flowers) utilization unsaturated. Whilst, a negative correlation between wasp offspring and viable seed production was also observed in cold season, which might be that the increased oviposition and pollination efficiency maximized the common resource utilization. The fitness trade-off between fig and pollinator wasps is greatly affected by environmental or ecological variations. The local stability might result from temporal low exploitation efficiency of pollinators together with interference competition among pollinators. We suggest that host repression through the active regulation of bract closure, which can create interference competition among the foundresses and prevent extra more foundresses sequential entry in fruit cavities, would help the figs avoiding the cost of over-exploitation. This essentially takes the same role as sanctioning of cheating or competitive behaviors.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at link.springer.com |
Keywords: | Agaonidae; co-evolution; conflict; cooperation; density dependence; mutualism; repression |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 08 Jul 2015 11:24 |
Last Modified: | 01 Oct 2015 15:13 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11427-015-4848-x |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SpringerOpen |
Identification Number: | 10.1007/s11427-015-4848-x |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:87798 |