guildfordcycads

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President Trump’s FY26 budget request cuts research accounts across federal agencies that would devastate America’s scientific enterprise.

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 Most of us hardly ever think about figs. It is one of many fruits available to us. Some could take them or leave them. It is quite possible, however, that this humble fruit played a critical role in human history, and even in the very existence of humans in the first place.  

The edible fig we know (Ficus carica)  helped sustain life for prehistoric people struggling to survive in the relatively harsh climate of the middle east. The oldest evidence of modern figs is from a site near Jericho dating 11,400 years ago. The key feature of these fossilized figs was that they were of a seedless variety that can only be propagated by cuttings. That means that figs were planted and cared for by people, making them the oldest known cultivated plant – older than wheat, rice, or any other crop. The figs found at Jericho were just the oldest to be preserved, but they were likely domesticated hundreds or thousands of years earlier, and before that even, humans (and possibly Neanderthals) most certainly consumed wild figs. 

Appropriately, the fig is a leading candidate for the “forbidden fruit” of the Garden of Eden. The fruit that tempted Adam and Eve is not named in the various versions of the creation story, and was not likely an apple as often depicted. The very first clothing of the sinful couple is identified as fig leaves, making the fig the more likely culprit. While there were wild species of apple throughout Eurasia, the tasty, sweet apple we know today was not found in the Middle East until introduced from Kazakhstan or China by traders along the Silk Road less than two thousand year ago.

So figs, which grow readily throughout the Middle East and all around the Mediterranean, produce fruit prolifically and were likely a staple of the people who would give rise to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and may have been a life saver during lean years. 

Humans, indeed primates in general, have always been omnivores. Our ancestors hunted animals for their meat, but humans could not survive on meat alone. Carbohydrates from plants, along with certain essential nutrients like vitamin C, were necessary parts of the diet, and in this sense, figs were highly nutritious. It is also a fact that larger animals were gradually hunted to extinction in the area, and plant foods increasingly filled the gap in our energy needs. Without the fig then, the survival of human populations in the Middle East would have been more difficult, and the civilizations that arose from them, might have been delayed or conceivably stopped altogether. 

Now let’s dial the prehistoric clock much further back, where figs likely played an even bigger role in our evolutionary history. The oldest known fossils of wild species of Ficus date back to the end of the Cretaceous period (66 mya). At this time, dinosaurs went extinct, and mammals began to emerge from their shadows and began to diversify. Early primates appeared at this time, characterized by an omnivorous diet and adaptations to life in rainforest canopies. Figs may have been among their food sources. Figs then appear to have undergone a major radiation around 20-40 million years ago, spreading to tropical forests around the world. Coincidentally, this is the time when true monkeys evolved from earlier primate ancestors and also spread around the tropical world. There are now at least 800 species of Ficus, all consumed by animals who spread their seeds in their feces. 

The grasping hands of monkeys and other primates are important both for grasping slender branches and for manipulating food items.  Photo by Whaldener Endo CC BY 2.5

Monkeys perfected life in the trees, developing great mobility and dexterity in the pursuit of their omnivorous diet, which included fruits, seeds, leafy shoots, flower parts and, to a lesser extent, small animals (insects, lizards, frogs, and bird eggs). It is an active life style, requiring continuous movement through the forest, and an energy-rich diet. Though omnivores, monkeys rely primarily on the carbohydrates of fruits for their energy needs. To find, pick, and manipulate such foods, monkeys have to move efficiently through the interlaced branches and vines of the tropical forest, from one fruiting tree to another. Their extraordinary agility and body flexibility would later be repurposed for developing technology needed by early humans for life in the savannas. Their specific adaptations include grasping hands, opposable thumbs, sensitive finger tips with flat nails, rotatable shoulder and arm joints, binocular color vision, intelligence, communication, and social interaction. (See also Of cacti and humans – are some species inevitable? and The problem with Wookies.) 

The proliferation of fig species in tropical rainforests may have provided the abundant and steady supply of carbohydrates that made the monkey lifestyle possible. Why figs and not the other tropical fruits?

The inside-out receptacle of a fig, bearing many tiny flowers on its internal surface. from Lessons with plants by Liberty Hyde Bailey, 1898

It’s time to look at the unique structure and biology of figs. A fig is not a simple fruit, but rather a compound fruit, like a pineapple or mulberry, derived from multiple tiny, crowded flowers. It is actually a many-flowered inflorescence. In the mulberry, which is in the same family (Moraceae), the small flowers are borne along a “normal” elongate stalk (receptacle). In a fig, however, the receptacle expands outward and upward, enclosing the tiny flowers in a chamber called a synconium. 

The flattened inflorescence of Dorstenia. Such flowers are pollinated by various small insects, including wasps, and maybe by the wind. Photo by Nyanatusita – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

To understand this we can look at another relative of the fig. In Dorstenia the receptacle flattens out into a plate-like structure with the many small flowers borne on its surface. This might be considered an “almost fig.” If its edges were to curve upwards and close at the tip, it would have the basic structure of the fig.

This unique floral structure is an adaptation for pollination by highly-specialized tiny wasps. it is believed that each of the 800 or so species of Ficus has its own species of pollinating wasp. 

There are variations among the 800 species of fig wasp, but a typical life cycle is as follows: A female wasp enters the fig through a tiny opening at the tip, and inserts a pre-fertilized egg inside a female flower where it develops into a larva. The larva develops by feeding on the tissues of the fig, and emerges inside the synconium as either a male or a female. This may take several weeks to several months, depending on the particular species of fig. The male wasps never leave the fig, but fertilize emerging females, often even before they are fully mature. The males then die and their tissues absorbed by the plant. The female wasps mature into their adult winged form and then leave the fig. At that time, the male flowers of the fig mature, and dust the female wasps with pollen as they leave. 

The females do not feed and live only a matter of days outside of the fig. They seek out and enter another young fig, where the reproductive cycle begins anew. The pollen on their bodies brushes off on  female flowers in the new fig. After they lay their eggs, the female wasps die and their bodies are absorbed. So the longest part of the fig wasp’s life, by far, is within the fig.

This is a mutual, obligatory relationship between wild figs and their wasps. Without the wasps, the figs cannot be pollinated and reproduce. Without the figs, the wasps cannot survive and reproduce. Since the female wasps cannot survive outside of the fig for very long, there must be newly forming figs constantly available. So tropical fig species continuously bear fruit. There are questions about how fig wasps overwinter in temperate species, most likely in partially developed dormant figs, but this is not relevant to the current story.

The bottom line is that tropical fig trees produce fruit continuously, providing a reliable, abundant food source for many rain forest inhabitants, including monkeys. It is quite possible then, that without figs, there may not have been sufficient reliable food for monkeys to have evolved, diversified, and developed their unique physical dexterity.

Tropical rain forest trees with more generalized pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, birds, bats, and beetles, may be seasonal in fruit production, with periods focused on vegetative growth or  surviving periods of reduced rainfall. So at times, figs may be the only food available in sufficient quantity to support fruit-eating animals. Monkeys also eat some leafy shoots, insects, etc. but this may not be sufficient to sustain a population for the long-term. 

Primates and figs came together just at the right time and place to set human evolution into motion. Could other arboreal mammals have done it?  Sloths, koala bears, and squirrels started off differently. These animals based their tree-climbing ability on claws, rather than the unique grasping hands and sensitive fingers of primates. Sloths and koala bears are primarily leaf-eaters, and so are low-energy arborealists. They could not compete with monkeys. Squirrels evolved in temperate regions where going up and down tree trunks with the aid of claws was more important than swinging through the tree-tops. Though they are somewhat omnivorous and quite agile, their diet, and primary carbohydrate source, center around seasonal hard nuts, which they bury for use in the winter. Claws are thus also required for digging. These adaptations were set in stone, even before some squirrels moved into tropical forests. 

Anyway, that is my hypothesis: without figs 20 million years ago, no monkeys – no monkeys, no humans today.

 

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