There’s far more to figs than the filling in your Fig Newtons. Beyond the domestic fig, there are hundreds of wild species, from banyans, to strangler figs, to the creeping fig that’s used as an alternative to ivy in warmer climates. And in tropical forests, figs are keystone species.
Most trees produce their fruit in response to seasonal cues like spring, or the start or end of the wet season. Fig trees are unusual—they stagger their fruit production throughout the year. Animals that rely on fruit like birds, primates, and certain bats, depend on an adequate food supply all through the year. When fruit is in short supply, fruit-eating animals can still find food if they can find a fig tree. Surviving the lean times sets a cap on the population frugivores a forest can support, which means that figs play a critical role in sustaining tropical biodiversity.
But the ability of fig trees to support all this diversity hinges on tiny wasps less than 2 mm long: fig wasps.
Hundreds of species of fig trees and hundreds of species of wasps have tied their evolutionary fate to one another—each pair of species is totally dependent on one another for their reproduction. Fig wasps must lay their eggs in the flowers of the particular species of fig they’re tied to, and most fig species are dependent on that single species of wasp for pollination.
But despite the importance of fig wasps, Wikipedia has very little to say about them. Out of 600 or so fig wasp species, there are eight genus articles and 24 species articles. And the majority of them are just short stubs that I created in a burst of editing back in 2008. Since then, the articles have received a slow stream of edits, but none of them have gotten any longer or gained more references. None, that is, until Shivani Green, a student in Kasey Fowler-Finn and Noah Leith’s Advanced Sex, Evolution and Behavior class, began working on the Pegoscapus article.
Pegoscapus is a genus of fig wasps. Species in this genus pollinate figs native to the Americas, like the Florida strangler fig (Ficus aurea), and the West Indian laurel fig (Ficus americana).
When it came time to pick an article to improve, Greene said, “I chose to work on the Pegoscapus article as I learned about their unique reproductive style in a Plants and Fungi class. As I researched for this article, I saw the limited information available and wanted to create an easily accessible hub for myself, students, and the public to learn more about these vital wasps.”
Between the end of my contributions to the article in 2008 and the time when Greene started editing, the Pegoscapus article had received 44 edits from 31 different Wikipedians, but from a reader’s perspective the article was completely unchanged: it was just 87 words long with two references.
Today, thanks to Greene, a biology major at Saint Louis University, the article is over 2,500 words long with 20 references, and gives an excellent overview of the genus, its biology, and its ecological importance.
Reflecting on her goals for the article’s readers, Greene wrote: “I hope they are able to get answers to questions they have about Pegoscapus as the limited research/discussions causes it to be difficult to draw conclusions. I hope they can be in awe of Pegoscapus‘s uniqueness and vitality to fig trees and their ecosystem. Lastly, I want them to be able to understand their complex life cycle.”
But why does it matter whether or not an obscure genus of fig wasps has an informative article? Because Wikipedia matters. In the nine years before the student started editing, the article received an average of one page view per day. Since then, it has averaged 4 views a day. This may not sound like a lot, but it’s four times the readership it received previously.
Search engines rely heavily on Wikipedia, and most AI tools are trained on its content. Topics that are absent from Wikipedia are less visible to search engines, while AI tools may just “hallucinate” answers for them.
From a conservation perspective, fig wasps matter. They are, quite literally, the small things that run the world. And like so many other small organisms that ecosystems depend on, fig wasps are at risk in a rapidly warming climate. As Greene wrote in the Pesoscapus article:
Fig wasp life span is significantly reduced with temperature increases predicted to occur by the end of the 21st century. If Pegoscapus cannot adapt to the increasing mean daytime temperature, then their shortened lifespan will reduce the dispersion of pollination among flowering fig trees, heavily impacting the tropical forest ecosystem.
Without representation in the sort of readily available information that Wikipedia provides, the fate of Pesoscapus wasps may go unnoticed by most of the world until it’s too late. And since each fig species’ ability to produce fruit depends entirely on their pollinator species, declines in fig wasp populations pose a threat to the many bird, primate, and bat species that depend on them.
And for student editors who have an opportunity to contribute to knowledge creation, the Wikipedia assignment matters. As Greene notes about her experience with the class, “Wikipedia allows students to gain confidence in their research and writing skills, helping them realize they can make a difference in the scientific community as well as the general public. It allows for there to be an easily accessible resource for the public to start with when trying to understand a topic. Giving them an aggregation of research on complex and niche topics allows for there to be more discussion, awareness, and hopefully, research.”
Wiki Education thanks the Horne Family Foundation for their support of this work to improve Wikipedia content related to species habitat, wildlife populations, and the impact of climate change.
Interested in incorporating a Wikipedia assignment into your course? Visit teach.wikiedu.org to learn more about the free resources, digital tools, and staff support that Wiki Education offers to postsecondary instructors in the United States and Canada. Apply by December 1, 2024 for priority consideration for spring 2025.
