Fig. 4

Caenorhabditis inopinata proliferates in early phase figs and disperses in late phase figs. a–e Dissected figs were binned into five developmental stages based on wasp presence and developmental progression: a not pollinated (Phase A), b pollinated with no apparent developing wasps (Phase B, arrow noting foundress pollinating wasp), c developing wasp progeny apparent (Phase C), d wasp progeny emerging (Phase D, arrow noting emerging wasp progeny), and e post-wasp emergence (Phase E). The presence of abundant (≥ 20 individuals) or rare (< 20 individuals) reproductive stage (not dauer larvae) or C. inopinata dauer larvae were noted in each dissected fig (see methods). f Frequency of observed C. inopinata developmental stage by fig developmental stage. Reproductive C. inopinata (i.e., developmental stages that are not dauer larvae) predominates in Phase B and Phase C figs, whereas C. inopinata dauer larvae dominate in Phase D and Phase E figs. C. inopinata was not observed in figs that were not pollinated. The number of figs dissected per stage is noted at the top of each bar. Reproductive stage and dauer C. inopinata frequencies were different between fig stages (G-test of independence p-values < 0.001 for both adult and dispersal types). Nematodes from the fig interior were used for all of these observations. Fisher’s exact test p-values for all pairwise comparisons can be found in Additional file 4: Tables S7, S8