How Many Babies Do Figs Pay for Babies?

Abstract

The percent seeds killed by pollinating agaonid wasps and their associated parasitic Hymenoptera in four species of Cos~d Rican deciduous forest fig trees averaged 41 to 77 percent in nine samples. No fig fruits lost less than about 25 percenr of their seeds to predation, and it was commonplace for more than 80 percent of the seeds to have been preyed on in fruit. One tree's crop was found to be sufficiently asynchronous that wasps leaving the early-maturing figs could have entered much younger figs receptive at that time; in this case, the later-maturing, and perhaps in part self-pollinated, fig crop had fewer seeds per fig and a higher percent seed predation.