I would simply NEVER get involved with business in the Mafia because I am not 100% sure I could complete my side of the bargain. ( I have seen what happens in the movie ‘The Godfather‘.) It is hard to keep promise because you never know what situation can occur, and if you do fall back on your word, how will that person handle it.
In nature, there are many contracts made between animals. In biology they are known as “mutually beneficial relationship “. Animals coexist each expecting the other to hold up their side of the arrangement. However what happens when one partner does do their share? Well in the case of the Fig tree and the Fig wasp, the wasp dies. (kinda like the mafia)
Fig trees and wasps can make up a great mutualstic relationship. The fig tree’s figs are a perfect home for the wasps to lay their eggs, and in return the wasps have to spread the tree’s pollen. A study by students at Cornell University showed that the fig tree will purposely drop the fig containing the larva, letting the die as they hit the ground, if the wasp does not spread it’s pollen. dang.
Who knew trees were so tough? Maybe whoever said “the bark is worse than it’s bite”.
The study came about when graduate student Charlotte Jandér wanted “to know what forces maintain this 80 million-year-old mutualism between figs and their wasp pollinators…What prevents the wasps from cheating and reaping the benefits of the relationship without paying the costs?” Now Charlotte knows the answer…death of their children.
Besides the 80 million-year-old relationship between fig trees and wasps, there are more than seven hundred species of fig trees and their mutullastic fig wasps. The pairings success is so remarkable it is hard to look at the fig tree’s tactic as cold or harsh, they have been together longer than humans. Maybe people will start to use more “tough love” to create a longlasting benefitial relationship.
carlybio12
That is so interesting! Trees really are smart…did you know that “some trees growing in nutrient-poor forest soil may get what they need by cultivating specific root microbes to create compounds they require?” Stephanie Uroz, an author on this study, said “In acidic forest soils, availability of inorganic nutrients is a tree-growth-limiting factor. A hypothesis to explain sustainable forest development proposes that tree roots select soil microbes involved in central biogeochemical processes, such as mineral weathering, that may contribute to nutrient mobilization and tree nutrition.” Check out more on this at: http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/07/30/some_trees_farm_bacteria_to_help_supply_nutrients.html