BackgroundFig pollinating wasps form obligate symbioses with their fig hosts. This mutualism arose approximately 75 million years ago. Unlike many other intimate symbioses, which involve vertical transmission of symbionts to host offspring, female fig wasps fly great distances to transfer horizontally between hosts. In contrast, male wasps are wingless and cannot disperse. Symbionts that keep intimate contact with their hosts often show genome reduction, but it is not clear if the wide dispersal of female fig wasps will counteract this general tendency. We sequenced the genome of the fig wasp Ceratosolen solmsi to address this question.ResultsThe genome size of the fig wasp C. solmsi is typical of insects, but has undergone dramatic reductions of gene families involved in environmental sensing and detoxification. The streamlined chemosensory ability reflects the overwhelming importance of females finding trees of their only host species, Ficus hispida, during their fleeting adult lives. Despite long-distance dispersal, little need exists for detoxification or environmental protection because fig wasps spend nearly all of their lives inside a largely benign host. Analyses of transcriptomes in females and males at four key life stages reveal that the extreme anatomical sexual dimorphism of fig wasps may result from a strong bias in sex-differential gene expression.ConclusionsOur comparison of the C. solmsi genome with other insects provides new insights into the evolution of obligate mutualism. The draft genome of the fig wasp, and transcriptomic comparisons between both sexes at four different life stages, provide insights into the molecular basis for the extreme anatomical sexual dimorphism of this species.

Although the genus Sycophila has broad host preferences, some species are specifically associated with figs as nonpollinator wasps. Because of their sexual dimorphism, morphological plasticity, cryptic mating behaviour and poorly known biology, species identifications are often uncertain. It is particularly difficult to match conspecific females and males. In this study, we employed two molecular markers, mitochondrial COI and nuclear ITS2, to identify Sycophila from six Chinese fig species. Morphological studies revealed 25 female and male morphs, while sequence results for both genes were consistent in supporting the presence of 15 species, of which 13 were host specialists and two used dual hosts. A single species of Sycophila was respectively found on four fig species, but six species were isolated from Ficus benjamina and a same number was reared from Ficus microcarpa. Sequence results revealed three male morphs in one species and detected two species that were overlooked by morphological analysis.

Cryptic and polymorphic species can complicate traditional taxonomic research and both of these concerns are common in fig wasp communities. Species identification is very difficult, despite great effort and the ecological importance of fig wasps. Herein, we try to identify all chalcidoid wasp species hosted by one species of fig, using both morphological and molecular methods. We compare the efficiency of four different DNA regions and find that ITS2 is highly effective for species identification, while mitochondrial COI and Cytb regions appear less reliable, possibly due to the interference signals from either nuclear copies of mtDNA, i.e. NUMTs, or the effects of Wolbachia infections. The analyses suggest that combining multiple markers is the best choice for inferring species identifications as any one marker may be unsuitable in a given case.

Philotrypesis, a major component of the fig wasp community (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae), is a model taxon for studying male fighting and mating behaviour. Its extreme sexual dimorphism and male polymorphism render species identification uncertain and in-depth research on its ecology, behaviour and other evolutionary topics challenging. The fig wasps' enclosed habitat within the syconia makes their mating behaviour inaccessible, to the extent of matching conspecific females and males. In this study, we combine morphological and molecular analyses to identify species of Philotrypesis sampled from south China and to associate their extraordinarily dimorphic genders and labile male morphologies. Morphological evaluations of females identify 22 species and 28 male morphs. The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I and nuclear internal transcribed spacer 2 data detect 21 species using females, and 15 species among the males. Most of the males match the species as delimited by females. Both markers reveal cryptic species in P. quadrisetosa on Ficus vasculosa. Most species of wasps live on one species of fig but three species co-occur in two hosts (F. microcarpa and F. benjamina), which indicates host switching.