Figs (Ficus spp., Moraceae) and their pollinating wasps form an obligate mutualism, which has long been considered a classic case of coevolution and cospeciation. Figs are also exploited by several clades of nonpollinating wasps, which are parasites of the mutualism and whose patterns of speciation have received little attention. We used data from nuclear and mitochondrial DNA regions to estima...

Social wasps are known to be aggressive, and this trait causes some other animal species associate with these insects. These associations appear common in nature, however, they not easily located nor understood. Thus, the objective of work is add new data studies between birds wasps, recorded from cerrado caatinga states Bahia, Ceará Rio Grande do Norte, northeastern Brazil, 2018 2021. Nine col...

a survey on the genus exallonyx kieffer, 1904 (hymenoptera: proctotrupidae) was conducted in northern iran. the specimens were collected using malaise traps during 2010–2011. the genus exallonyx and six species were collected and identified for the first time from iran: exallonyx ater (gravenhorst, 1807), e. brevicornis (haliday, 1839), e. formicarius kieffer, 1904, e. ligatus (nees, 1834), e. ...

Larvae of social wasps of the family Vespidae produce an oral exudate that is imbibed by attendant adults. Passage of this liquid from larvae to adults is the key feature of trophallaxis behavior (Wheeler, 1918), which has recently been reviewed by Wilson (1971), Spradbery (1973), and Jeanne (1980). Exchange of alimentary liquid among adults is also generally viewed as a component of trophallax...

Establishing a direct link between climate change and fluctuations in animal populations through long-term monitoring is difficult given the paucity of baseline data. We hypothesized that social wasps are sensitive to climatic variations, and thus studied the impact of ENSO events on social wasp populations in French Guiana. We noted that during the 2000 La Niña year there was a 77.1% decrease ...

Throughout the study of ecology, there has been a growing realization that indirect effects among species cause complexity in food webs. Understanding and predicting the behavior of ecosystems consequently depends on our ability to identify indirect effects and their mechanisms. The present study experimentally investigates indirect interactions arising between two prey species that share a com...

We studied components of male and female reproductive success in the fig, Ficus hirta from Guangdong Province, China. Specifically, we analyzed the composition and sex ratio of both pollinating (Blastophaga javana) and the two species of non-pollinating wasps associated with functionally male figs, as well as seed production in the functionally female figs. In male figs, a mean of 799 flowers p...

1. Parasitoids are predicted to spend longer in patches with more hosts, but previous work on Cotesia rubecula (Marshall) has not upheld this prediction. Tests of theoretical predictions may be affected by the definition of patch leaving behavior, which is often ambiguous. 2. In this study whole plants were considered as patches and assumed that wasps move within patches by means of walking or ...

Host-parasites interaction is a common phenomenon in nature. Diffusive coevolution might maintain stable cooperation in a fig-fig wasps system, in which the exploiter might diversify their genotype, phenotype, or behavior as a result of competition with pollinator, whereas the figs change flower syconia, fruits thickness, and syconia structure. In functionally dioecious Ficus auriculata, male f...

Ascoviruses are disseminated among larvae in lepidopteran populations by parasitic wasps during oviposition. Ascovirus relationships with these wasps vary from pathogenic to mutualistic, and experimentally can be shown possibly to be commensal non-pathogenic virus having little or no effect. Most ascoviruses are pathogens that female wasps vector mechanically. Other ascoviruses have a more inti...