The demise of the red queen: fig functional morphology stabilizes the fig-pollinating wasp mutualism

SémIDEEV
 10/02/2023
 12:00:00
 Finn Kjellberg, Montpellier
 IDEEV - Salle Rosalind Franklin

Facts

• Fig trees are long lived
• Fig pollinating wasps are short lived
• Fig pollinating wasps are thousands to hundreds of thousands times more numerous than fig trees: fig pollinating wasps respond faster to selection than fig trees

The evolutionary problem

If there is an evolutionary race between fig trees and fig wasps, the fig trees will loose and the system will go extinct

Why is there no co-evolutionary race?

Hypothesis: fig morphology

• determines selection on wasp behaviour
• controls the consequences of wasp behaviour

fig morphology canalises selection so that there is no destabilising selection on the mutualism