The fig pollinating wasps (Hymenoptera: Agaonidae) have obligate arrhenotoky and a breeding structure that fits local mate competition (LMC). it has been traditionally assumed that LMC organisms adjust the sex ratio by laying a greater proportion of male eggs when there is superparasitism (several foundresses in a host). We tested the assumption with two wasp species, Pegoscapus silvestrii, pollinator of Ficus pertusa and Pegoscapus tonduzi, pollinator of Ficus eximia (= F. citrifolia), in the Central Valley of Costa Rica. Total number of wasps and seeds were recorded in individual isolated naturally colonized syconia. There was a constant additive effect between the number of foundresses and the number of males produced in the brood of a syconium, while the number of females decreased. Both wasp species seem to have precise sex ratios and probably lay the male eggs first in the sequence, independently of superparasitism and clutch size: consequently, they have a non-random sex allocation. Each syconium of Ficus pertusa and of F. eximia colonized by one foundress had similar mean numbers of females, males, and seeds. The two species of wasps studied do not seem to adjust the sex ratio when there is superparasitism. Pollinating fig wasp behavior is better explained by those models not assuming that females do mathematical calculations according to other females' sex ratios, size, number of foundresses, genetic constitution, clutch size or environmental conditions inside the syconium. Our results are in agreement with the constant male number hypothesis, not with sex ratio games. Rev. Biol. Trop. 57 (3): 605-621. Epub 2009 September 30.

Parasitodiplogaster has been considered to be an internal specialised parasite of the pollinating fig wasps. We found that the second-stage juveniles of Parasitodiplogaster citrinema emerge directly from the eggs retained in the ovaries, penetrate the adult female wasps at their eclosion from their galls, and moult to inactive dauers. Parasitodiplogaster dauers are ensheathed, and do not abandon the living host, while the pre-adults become necrophagous inside the wasp cadaver. The adult nematodes emerge from the wasp’s cadaver 72 h (up to 240 h) after the wasp perishes. Parasitodiplogaster citrinema was found to be proovigenic, has about 15 developed eggs in each oviduct and is ovoviviparous. Unfed caged adult female wasps remained alive for 65 h despite being infected. The dauers do not feed or grow inside the living hosts, and the adults seem to feed on dead fig tissues.

It has been assumed that Tetrapus female wasps (Agaonidae s.s.), the pollinators of the figs of the New World, section Pharmacosycea, are mainly characterized by the presence of one mandibular appendange only, and that it is the most ancestral clade of extant Agaonidae s.s., and the males are tetrapodous. The main objective of this work was to study five

Pepsis aquila (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae) is reported as an assiduous flower visitor and possible pollinator of Passiflora apetala, P. auriculata and P. holosericea in Costa Rica. The vertex and scutellum of P. aquila becomes abundantly covered with pollen while collecting the nectar from the cup nectaries of Passiflora. The Passiflora visited by P. aquila share some floral characteristics with previously reported plants pollinated by pompilids in Africa.