scholarly journals Tracking the elusive history of diversification in plant-herbivorous insect-parasitoid food webs: insights from figs and fig wasps

2016 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 843-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Finn Kjellberg ◽  
Magali Proffit
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Herbivorous Insect ◽  
Fig Wasps ◽  
Insect Parasitoid ◽  
History Of

scholarly journals Analysis of Ficus hirta Fig Endosymbionts Diversity and Species Composition

Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 636
Author(s):  
Yifeng Liu ◽  
Songle Fan ◽  
Hui Yu
Keyword(s):  
High Throughput Sequencing ◽  
Biological Database ◽  
Fig Wasp ◽  
Fig Wasps ◽  
Function Annotation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ficus Hirta ◽  
Bacteria And Fungi ◽  
And Function ◽  
Confined Environment

Endosymbionts living in plants and insects are pervasive. Ficus (Moraceae) has very special inflorescences (which we also call figs) enclosed like an urn, and such inflorescence is usually parasitized by fig wasps. Ficus breeds fig wasp larvae in its figs and adult fig wasps pollinate for Ficus, Ficus and its obligated pollinator formed fig-fig wasp mutualism. Previous studies have found that this confined environment in figs may have provided protection for fig wasps and that this has left some imprints on the genome of fig wasps during the coevolution history of figs and fig wasps. Research on the diversity of both bacteria and fungi in figs are fewer. Our study explored the diversity of endosymbionts in Ficus hirta figs. We utilized high-throughput sequencing and biological database to identify the specific microorganism in figs, then conducted microorganism communities’ diversity analysis and function annotation analysis. As a result, we identified the dominant endosymbionts in figs, mainly some insect internal parasitic bacteria and fungi, plant pathogen, endophytes, and saprotroph. Then we also found bacteria in Ficus hirta figs were more diversified than fungi, and bacteria communities in female figs and functional male figs were different. These findings may give us more insight into the coevolution and interaction among endosymbiont, fig, and fig wasp.

Biodiversity and Plant-Animal Coevolution

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jordi Bascompte ◽  
Pedro Jordano
Keyword(s):  
Recent History ◽  
Fig Wasps ◽  
Free Living ◽  
Pairwise Interactions ◽  
History Of Research ◽  
History Of Ecology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Living Species ◽  
Multispecies Interactions ◽  
Antagonistic Interactions

This chapter begins by tracing the history of research on mutualism. The first studies on mutualism focused on highly specialized one-to-one interactions between one plant and one animal. Examples of these highly specific pairwise interactions include Darwin’s moth and its, long-tongued flies and monocot plants, fig wasps and figs, and yucca moths and yuccas. The discussions then turn to the five major groups of multispecific mutualisms and coevolution in multispecific mutualisms. It argues that the interest in mutualistic interactions and their patterns of evolution and coevolution has been marginal during most of the recent history of ecology, with its central emphasis on antagonistic interactions. A persistent challenge has been to understand how multispecies interactions evolve and coevolve among free-living species.

scholarly journals Genome-Wide Analysis of Chemosensory Protein Genes (CSPs) Family in Fig Wasps (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea)

Genes ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1149
Author(s):  
Zhaozhe Xin ◽  
Dawei Huang ◽  
Dan Zhao ◽  
Jiaxing Li ◽  
Xianqin Wei ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Gene Family ◽  
Tandem Duplication ◽  
Fig Wasps ◽  
Chemosensory Protein ◽  
Index Analysis ◽  
Genome Wide ◽  
History Of ◽  
Genome Level ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Adaptation Index

Chemosensory proteins (CSP) are a class of acidic soluble proteins which have various functions in chemoreception, resistance and immunity, but we still have very little knowledge on this gene family in fig wasps, a peculiar insects group (Hymenoptera, Chalcidoidea) that shelter in the fig syconia of Ficus trees. Here, we made the first comprehensive analysis of CSP gene family in the 11 fig wasps at whole-genome level. We manually annotated 104 CSP genes in the genomes of the 11 fig wasps, comprehensively analyzed them in gene characteristics, conserved cysteine patterns, motif orders, phylogeny, genome distribution, gene tandem duplication, and expansion and contraction patterns of the gene family. We also approximately predicted the gene expression by codon adaptation index analysis. Our study shows that the CSP gene family is conserved in the 11 fig wasps; the CSP gene numbers in pollinating fig wasps are less than in non-pollinating fig wasps, which may be due to their longer history of adaptation to fig syconia; the expansion of CSP gene in two non-pollinating fig wasps, Philotrypesis tridentata and Sycophaga agraensis, may be a species-specific phenomenon. These results provide us with useful information for understanding the evolution of the CSP gene family of insects in diverse living environments.

scholarly journals Does evolution design robust food webs?

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1930) ◽  
pp. 20200747
Author(s):  
B. Girardot ◽  
M. Gauduchon ◽  
F. Ménard ◽  
J. C. Poggiale
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Energy Supply ◽  
Ecological Communities ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Trophic Networks ◽  
Crucial Effect ◽  
Community Evolution ◽  
History Of ◽  
Past Conditions

Theoretical works that use a dynamical approach to study the ability of ecological communities to resist perturbations are largely based on randomly generated ecosystem structures. By contrast, we ask here whether the evolutionary history of food webs matters for their robustness. Using a community evolution model, we first generate trophic networks by varying the level of energy supply (richness) of the environment in which species adapt and diversify. After placing our simulation outputs in perspective with present-day food webs empirical data, we highlight the complex, structuring role of this environmental condition during the evolutionary setting up of trophic networks. We then assess the robustness of food webs by studying their short-term ecological responses to swift changes in their customary environmental richness. We reveal that the past conditions have a crucial effect on the robustness of current food webs. Moreover, directly focusing on connectance of evolved food webs, it turns out that the most connected ones appear to be the least robust to sharp depletion in the environmental energy supply. Finally, we appraise the ‘adaptation’ of food webs themselves: generally poor, except in relation to a diversity of flux property.

Copper effects in the copepod Tigriopus angulatus Lang, 1933: natural broad tolerance allows maintenance of food webs in copper-enriched coastal areas

2008 ◽  
Vol 59 (12) ◽  
pp. 1061 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. H. Medina ◽  
B. Morandi ◽  
J. A. Correa
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Intrinsic Rate ◽  
Natural Increase ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Northern Chile ◽  
Copper Mine Tailings ◽  
History Of ◽  
A Site

Some coastal areas of northern Chile have received copper mine tailings for more than 60 years. At these areas, the toxic effects of copper have eliminated most intertidal seaweed and macroinvertebrate populations. However, the harpacticoid splashpool copepod Tigriopus angulatus seems unaffected, inhabiting heavily impacted sites. Because this species of copepod makes the energy of photosynthesis available to higher trophic levels, it becomes ecologically relevant to define the range of copper it can tolerate without affecting its population size. This was assessed through the analysis of demographic responses measured in a life-cycle experiment with copepods from a site with no history of heavy metal pollution. Results showed that juvenile survival was the most sensitive endpoint and that the species’ intrinsic rate of natural increase (rm) remains unaffected (without showing a fitness cost associated with tolerance) at copper concentrations within the range measured at these impacted areas. Thus, despite the high levels of dissolved copper measured at those sites, the local population of T. angulatus apparently can persist in exploiting its ecological niche and contributing to the overall ecosystem functioning, highlighting an unforeseen role of this copepod in the maintenance of food webs at the copper-enriched environment of northern Chile.

scholarly journals Pollutant Dehalogenation Capability May Depend on the Trophic Evolutionary History of the Organism: PBDEs in Freshwater Food Webs

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (7) ◽  
pp. e41829 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mireia Bartrons ◽  
Joan O. Grimalt ◽  
Guillermo de Mendoza ◽  
Jordi Catalan
Keyword(s):  
Food Webs ◽  
Evolutionary History ◽  
History Of
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