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for kids - strangler fig facts, fun & pics
Strangler figs are among the tallest tropical trees--ranging from 50 to 150 feet. Their trunks are gnarled and bumpy; their shiny, evergreen leaves are leathery, oblong, and pointed. Strangler fig bark is thin, smooth, and gray and often spotted with gold, pale green, and white.
Stranglers are a keystone rainforest species, providing food and habitat for hundreds of animals. Unlike most rainforest trees, which fruit only once every one to three years, stranglers produce fruit three or more times in a single year. They are often a primary food source when other fruits are scarce.
Some animals depend on figs for as much as 70 percent of their diet. For this reason, the number of fruit-eating animals in a forest depends on the number of fig trees. In turn, the number of predators depends on the number of fruit-eating animals. Thus, the number of predators depends on the number of fig trees.
Why are they called STRANGLER figs?Stranglers are parasites: to grow from seeds to mature trees, they help themselves to resources provided by another tree. Eventually they completely take over and kill the tree that gives them their start in life.
At the same time the fig is strangling its host tree, it is also shading out its canopy and competing with it for water and nutrients.
How do they strangle another tree?A strangler fig usually begins its life as a tiny sprout growing from a seed deposited on a tree branch high in the rainforest canopy. This sprout sends a long root--up to 120 feet--from the branch, through the air, to the forest floor.
When the root reaches the ground, the sprout begins sending other roots down and around its host tree, entwining it in a cascading net. As these roots harden and thicken, they begin to grow together to form a trunk, in a process called "anastimosis." Slowly but surely, the fig completely surrounds the host tree, in what one forester has called a "living coffin."
As the strangler grows, the host tree also continues to grow. The two trunks begin to press against each other. The host tree is finally squeezed so tight that its vascular system collapses and it can no longer move water and nutrients from the soil to its upper branches. It has been
strangled.
How did the strangler seed get into the canopy?It was deposited on its host tree by an animal. Strangler figs rely on many different rainforest animals to carry their seeds to branches in the sunny canopy. Parrots, toucans, fruit bats, howler and spider monkeys, paca and other rodents, mousedeer, and even some Amazon Valley fish eat the sweet, fleshy fruit of the strangler fig.
The interdependent relationship between stranglers and the animals that eat their fruit and spread their seeds is called "symbiosis." The strangler's parasitic dependence on its host tree is another form of symbiosis--but one that does not benefit the host tree.
The tiny fig seeds pass quickly through animal digestive tracts because the fruit acts as a laxative. Bacteria contained in animal intestines and leaf litter help break down the fig seeds' tough outer coatings, enabling them to sprout.
Howler monkeys spread their dung in trees to mark territory. Dung beetles roll seed-filled animal dung to locations far from the mother tree, insuring that seeds are spread far and wide throughout the forest. Neatly packaged in natural fertilizer, the seeds are primed for a good start.
Do strangler figs have special relationships with other animals?Stranglers are at the center of a complex web of interrelationships. Another example is the fig family's mutually beneficial dependence on the wasp family, Agaoridae. Each of the hundreds of different kinds of fig trees is pollinated by a unique wasp species. Wasps live year-round in the hollow fig flowers, where they lay their eggs.
Is this the same flower that makes the fruit that monkeys eat?Yes, and it is a very interesting kind of flower, called a "synconium." The synconium is an inside-out flower cluster--a hollow pod lined with hundreds of small, unisexual flowers. Tiny wasps, small enough to fly through the eye of a needle, live inside a fig tree's synconia and lay eggs within the flowers.
Within their synconium nurseries, male wasp larvae hatch first. They are very unlike female wasps, smaller, feeble, without wings, and nearly blind. They do have powerful jaws and telescoping genitals. They help females hatch by chewing their egg cases off. They fertilize the immature females and chew a hole in the synconium through which the mature female wasps will exit on their way to lay eggs.
Male wasps die soon after they complete the escape hatch. Females mature and prepare to leave the synconium to find a new nursery for the next wasp generation. As they are leaving, the male fig flowers release pollen, coating each wasp with a thick layer.
Laden with pollen, each female wasp squeezes through a tight hole (called an "ostiole") that she finds at the bottom of a second synconium. As she squeezes, her wings and antennae are scraped off. The tiny opening closes behind her, preventing ants and other predators from invading. She pollinates female flowers in the new synconium and lays her eggs in some of them. She is trapped inside and soon dies, and her body is dissolved by fig enzymes.
Flowers in which the wasp has not laid eggs develop mature fruit filled with tiny seeds. These are the fruit that monkeys and other animals eat. The fig tree produces synconia in such abundance that there are always plenty of undisturbed female flowers to provide safe nests for the next generation of wasps.
Does it hurt the forest when a strangler fig kills a host tree?In the long run, strangler figs benefit the forest far more than they harm it. In addition to producing food and fruit juice for many animals, stranglers also provide protected nesting areas for lizards, frogs, ants, wasps and myriad birds.
These small animals live in the fig's many nooks and hollows and in the decaying trunk of the host tree. In turn, they attract larger animals that feed on them. Debris and water that collect in the fig's branches and gnarled trunk provide nutrients for the tree, nurseries for tadpoles and insect larvae, and fertile soil for bromeliads.
How old do strangler figs live to be?Stranglers may live for hundreds of years. And, because their wood is considered inferior and they are difficult to cut down, they are often all that is left when a forest is logged. It is not unusual to find a cut and burned area of forest where only the stranglers are left standing, lonely islands of animal and plant life.
Do human beings eat strangler fig fruit?No--too many seeds! But Native Central Americans use the milky latex collected from stranglers to eliminate intestinal worms. People also use the bark of the Polynesian banyan, another member of the fig family, to treat skin cancers.
The people of Central America love and revere stranglers for the abundance of life they support. They call them "amate," a word that might derive from the Latin word for love. "Amate" may also derive from Natuahl word "amatl," which means paper or codex (book). The Aztecs created paper by pounding ficus fibers. Central Americans also call strangler figs "matapalo" or "tree killer."
Do stranglers ever grow on things other than host trees?Stranglers can be extremely destructive when they grow on buildings. For example, the enormous temples and palaces built by the Maya people of Central America have been "ruined" or reclaimed by strangler figs, which root in the cracks between stones and slowly engulf whole buildings.
As stranglers grow, they help to create an environment in which other trees and vines thrive. After a few centuries, even the tallest, grandest temples appear to be nothing more than thickly forested hills. Figs also invade contemporary structures, including buildings, roads, swimming pools, utility poles, and underground pipes.
Strangler figs reclaim burned and devastated areas. On the Indonesian island of Krakatoa, figs were among the first plants to regenerate after the enormous volcanic eruption in 1883.
Do stranglers grow in the United States?Unfortunately, tropical ficus can be very invasive when brought to the United States. This has become a problem in Florida and California. There are two tropical figs native to Florida, but they do not "strangle."
Species and Range.The fig family--part of the larger mulberry family--is huge and diverse. More than a thousand different kinds of fig grow in rainforests and deserts and on grassy plains. Fig plants include trees, shrubs, and vines. Strangler figs are related to the common houseplant Ficus Benjamina; the majestic banyan tree, Ficus Bengalensis; the edible figs of the Middle East, Mediterranean, and western United States; and hundreds of other fig species.
Strangler figs include many species with similar behavior found in rainforests worldwide. They are Magnoliophyta of the Magnoliopsida class, Hamamelidae subclass, Urticales order, Moraceae family, and ficus genus.
Often many fig species inhabit the same forest. For example, a small island in the Panama Canal is home to seventeen different figs.
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