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Mansa Musa was the ruler of the Mali Empire in West Africa. Details recorded here should be sourced; unknown information is left blank.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Fig wasps | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Blastophaga psenes female | |
Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Clade: | Pancrustacea |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Hymenoptera |
| Suborder: | Apocrita |
| Infraorder: | Proctotrupomorpha |
| Superfamily: | Chalcidoidea |
Fig wasps are wasps of the superfamily Chalcidoidea which spend their larval stage inside fig syconia. Some are pollinators but others simply feed off the plant. The non-pollinators belong to several groups within the superfamily Chalcidoidea, while the pollinators are in the family Agaonidae. Pollinating fig wasps are all gall-makers, while non-pollinating fig wasps either make their own galls or usurp the galls of other fig wasps. The lifestyles of these fig wasps rely on the fruit of fig trees to reproduce, with pollinating fig wasps acting as mutualists, and non-pollinating fig wasps as parasites.[1]
Aristotle recorded in his History of Animals that the fruits of the wild fig (the caprifig) contain psenes (fig wasps); these begin life as grubs (larvae), and the adult psen splits its "skin" (pupa) and flies out of the fig to find and enter a cultivated fig, saving it from dropping. He believed that the psen was generated spontaneously; he did not recognise that the fig was reproducing sexually and that the psen was assisting in that process.[2]
The fig wasps are a polyphyletic group, including several lineages whose similarities are based upon their shared association with figs. In 2022, family Agaonidae was updated to include only the pollinating fig wasps under a single monophyletic clade. Other fig wasps are now included in the families Epichrysomallidae, Eurytomidae, Melanosomellidae, Ormyridae, Pteromalidae, and Torymidae.[3][4] These non-pollinating fig wasps represent a much more diverse taxon, only distantly related to their pollinating cousins.[5]
In the Agaonidae, the female (as in most Hymenoptera) has four wings, whereas the males are wingless. The primary functions of agaonid males are to mate with the females while still within the fig syconium (inverted flower) and to chew a hole for the females to escape from the fig interior. This is the reverse of sex-linked functions in Strepsiptera and bagworms, where the male has wings and the female never leaves the host.
The non-pollinating fig wasps have developed several impressive morphological adaptations in order to oviposit eggs within the fig syconium. Many species have extremely long ovipositors, so that they can deposit eggs from the outside of the syconium (Subtribe Sycoryctina of Otitesellini[6] and Subfamily Sycophaginae[7]). Others have evolved to enter the syconium in the same way as the Agaonidae, and now resemble the pollinators morphologically (Subtribe Sycoecina of Otitesellini).[8] Less is known about the evolution of non-pollinating fig wasps who form different clades from various lineages, each independently colonized the syconium.[9] These wasps work around the mutualistic relationship, exploiting fig fruits as parasites.[9]
Most figs (more than 600 species) have syconia that contain three types of flowers: male, short female, and long female. Female fig wasps can reach the ovaries of short female flowers with their ovipositors, but not long female flowers. Thus, the short female flowers grow wasps, and the long flowers only seeds. Contrary to popular belief, ripe figs are not full of dead wasps and the "crunchy bits" in the fruit are only seeds. The fig actually produces an enzyme called ficain (also known as ficin) which digests the dead wasps and the fig absorbs the nutrients to create the ripe fruits and seeds.[10] Several commercial and ornamental varieties of fig are parthenocarpic and do not require pollination to produce (sterile) fruits; these varieties need not be visited by fig wasps to bear fruit.[11]
The life cycle of the fig wasp is closely intertwined with that of the fig tree it inhabits. The wasps that inhabit a particular tree can be divided into two groups; pollinating and non-pollinating. The pollinating wasps are part of an obligate nursery pollination mutualism with the fig tree, while the non-pollinating wasps feed off the plant without benefiting it. The life cycles of the two groups, however, are similar.[13]
Though the lives of individual species differ, a typical pollinating fig wasp life cycle is as follows. At the beginning of the cycle, a mated mature female pollinator wasp enters the immature "fruit" (actually a stem-like structure known as a syconium) through a small natural opening (the ostiole) and deposits her eggs in the cavity.[14]
Forcing her way through the ostiole, the mated mature female often loses her wings and most of her antennae. To facilitate her passage through the ostiole, the underside of the female's head is covered with short spines that provide purchase on the walls of the ostiole.
In depositing her eggs, the female also deposits pollen she picked up from her original host fig. This pollinates some of the female flowers on the inside surface of the fig and allows them to mature. After the female wasp lays her eggs and follows through with pollination, she dies.[15]
After pollination, there are several species of non-pollinating wasps that deposit their eggs before the figs harden. These wasps act as parasites to either the fig or possibly the pollinating wasps.
As the fig develops, the wasp eggs hatch and develop into larvae. After going through the pupal stage, the mature male’s first act is to mate with a female - before the female hatches. Consequently, the female will emerge pregnant. The males of many species lack wings and cannot survive outside the fig for a sustained period of time. After mating, a male wasp begins to dig out of the fig, creating a tunnel through which the females escape.[16]
Once out of the fig, the male wasps quickly die. The females find their way out, picking up pollen as they do. They then fly to another tree of the same species, where they deposit their eggs and allow the cycle to begin again.
The fig–wasp mutualism originated between 70 and 90 million years ago as the product of a unique evolutionary event.[17][18][19] Since then, cocladogenesis and coadaptation on a coarse scale between wasp genera and fig sections have been demonstrated by both morphological and molecular studies.[19][20] This illustrates the tendency towards coradiation of figs and wasps.[19] Such strict cospeciation should result in identical phylogenetic trees for the two lineages[18] and recent work mapping fig sections onto molecular phylogenies of wasp genera and performing statistical comparisons has provided strong evidence for cospeciation at that scale.[18]
Groups of genetically well-defined pollinator wasp species coevolve in association with groups of genetically poorly defined figs.[21] The constant hybridization of the figs promotes the constant evolution of new pollinator wasp species. Host switching and pollinator host sharing may contribute to the incredible diversity of figs and fig wasp species like Pegoscapus as they result in hybridization and introgression.[21]
Conservation efforts aim to control the populations often times targeting figs and fig wasps separately in order to develop strategies that are distinct for each species.[22] Because many of these mutualist interactions are species specific it makes it difficult for conservationists to focus on the group at large, rather tackling individual populations with high concern. There is already heavily studied control mechanisms in figs that control for wasp populations.[23] The current focus in the field is the conservation of fig wasp species as the role of pollinators is steadily declining with climate change. Because many of these species have coevolved together through generations the main aim of conservation strategies is that protection of one species in the mutualism in turn affects the other, so by developing strategies to protect threatened wasp populations, the species of fig associated with it will also be impacted.[23]
Many figs are also keystone species in their environment, being food sources and homes for a wide range of species. Fig wasps are obligate mutualists with their respective fig species, not being able to survive without each other.[24] The loss of a pollinator wasp would result in the decline of a fig species, resulting in the general decline in the habitat.[22] These reasons are why fig wasps have become a main focus among conservationists with the aim of protecting crucial keystone fig species.
One of the world's major fig wasp collections resides in Leeds Museums and Galleries' Discovery Centre,[25] and was collected by Dr. Steve Compton.[26][27]
researchgate/234150391
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Fig wasps are wasps of the superfamily Chalcidoidea which spend their larval stage inside fig syconia. Some are pollinators but others simply feed off the plant. The non-pollinators belong to several groups within the superfamily Chalcidoidea, while the pollinators are in the family Agaonidae. Pollinating fig wasps are all gall-makers, while non-pollinating fig wasps either make their own galls or usurp the galls of other fig wasps. The lifestyles of these fig wasps rely on the fruit of fig trees to reproduce, with pollinating fig wasps acting as mutualists, and non-pollinating fig wasps as parasites.
Nectar is a viscous, sugar-rich liquid produced by plants in glands called nectaries, either within the flowers with which it attracts pollinating animals, or by extrafloral nectaries, which provide a nutrient source to animal mutualists, which in turn provide herbivore protection. Common nectar-consuming pollinators include mosquitoes, hoverflies, wasps, bees, butterflies and moths, hummingbirds, honeyeaters and bats. Nectar is an economically important substance as it is the sugar source for honey. Nectar is also useful in agriculture and horticulture because the adult stages of some predatory insects feed on nectar. For example, a number of predacious or parasitoid wasps (e.g., the social wasp species Apoica flavissima) rely on nectar as a primary food source. In turn, these wasps then hunt agricultural pest insects as food for their young. Nectar is most often associated with flowering plants (angiosperms), but it is also produced by other groups, including ferns.
Archaea ( ar-KEE-ə) is a domain of organisms. Traditionally, Archaea included only its prokaryotic members, but has since been found to be paraphyletic, as eukaryotes are known to have evolved from archaea. Even though the domain Archaea cladistically includes eukaryotes, the term archaea (sing. archaeon ar-KEE-on; from Ancient Greek ἀρχαῖον arkhaîon 'ancient') in English still generally refers specifically to prokaryotic members of Archaea. Archaea were initially classified as bacteria, receiving the name archaebacteria (, in the Archaebacteria kingdom), but this taxonomic approach has fallen out of use. Archaeal cells have unique properties distinguishing them from Bacteria and Eukaryota, including: cell membranes made of ether-linked lipids; metabolisms such as methanogenesis; and a unique motility structure known as an archaellum. Archaea are further divided into multiple recognized phyla. Classification is difficult because most have not been isolated in a laboratory and have been identified only by their gene sequences in environmental samples. They have not been observed to produce endospores. Archaea are often similar to bacteria in size and shape, although a few have very different shapes, such as the flat, square cells of Haloquadratum walsbyi. Despite this, archaea possess genes and several metabolic pathways that are more closely related to those of eukaryotes, notably for the enzymes involved in transcription and translation. Other aspects of archaeal biochemistry are unique, such as their reliance on ether lipids in their cell membranes, including archaeols. Archaea use more diverse energy sources than eukaryotes, ranging from organic compounds such as sugars, to ammonia, metal ions or even hydrogen gas. The salt-tolerant halobacteria use sunlight as an energy source, and other species of archaea fix carbon (autotrophy), but unlike cyanobacteria, no known species of archaea does both. Archaea reproduce asexually by binary fission, fragmentation, or budding; unlike bacteria, no known species of Archaea form endospores. The first observed archaea were extremophiles, living in extreme environments such as hot springs and salt lakes with no other organisms. Improved molecular detection tools led to the discovery of archaea in almost every habitat, including soil, oceans, and marshlands. Archaea are particularly numerous in the oceans, and the archaea in plankton may be one of the most abundant groups of organisms on the planet. Archaea are a major part of Earth's life. They are part of the microbiota of all organisms. In the human microbiome, they are important in the gut, mouth, and on the skin. Their morphological, metabolic, and geographical diversity permits them to play multiple ecological roles: carbon fixation; nitrogen cycling; organic compound turnover; and maintaining microbial symbiotic and syntrophic communities, for example. As of 2024, only one species of archaea has been found to be parasitic; many are mutualists or commensals, such as the methanogens (methane-producers) that inhabit the gastrointestinal tract in humans and ruminants, where their vast numbers facilitate digestion. Methanogens are used in biogas production and sewage treatment, while biotechnology exploits enzymes from extremophile archaea that can endure high temperatures and organic solvents.
The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), commonly known as the First International, was a political international which aimed to unite a variety of left-wing political groups and trade union organizations based on the working class and class struggle. It was founded in 1864 at a workers' meeting in St Martin's Hall, London, and its first congress was held in 1866 in Geneva. The IWA's history was characterized by internal conflicts between different socialist and anarchist factions. The initial ideological struggle was between the communists or Marxists, centred around Karl Marx on the General Council, and the mutualists or followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The communists successfully displaced the mutualists as the dominant ideological trend at the Brussels Congress in 1868. The rise of Mikhail Bakunin's collectivist anarchist faction in the late 1860s led to a more intense conflict over the role of the state and political action in achieving socialism. The organization reached its peak following the Paris Commune of 1871, which was celebrated and defended by the International in Marx's influential address, The Civil War in France. The bloody suppression of the Commune, however, led to a period of harsh government repression against the IWA. The internal divisions culminated in a definitive split at the Hague Congress in 1872, where Bakunin and his ally James Guillaume were expelled. In a strategic move to prevent the organization from falling under the control of other factions, the congress voted to transfer the seat of the General Council to New York City. This decision effectively marked the end of the IWA as a mass European movement. The New York-based General Council officially disbanded the original International in 1876. The anarchist wing formed a rival International at St. Imier, but it also dissolved by the late 1870s. Although it was short-lived, the First International was a highly significant event in the history of the labour movement. It helped establish the theoretical foundations of the main currents of socialism, communism, and anarchism, and its experience was crucial for the development of mass-based national social democratic parties that formed the Second International in 1889.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.