I heard this radio program, called Living On Earth. It's produced by Public Radio International, and was broadcast on NPR on 20 January 2017. They had a 15 minute segment on figs. Quite interesting... much that many of you probably already know, but plenty that's new and interesting. Strangler Figs. A Keystone species. Rainforest restoration. And some drama about the wasp. Mike Shanahan was a guest on the program -- he recently wrote a book entitled Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers: The Secret History and Redemptive Future of Fig Trees
(I see that johnny_k already posted the link to the BBC article that Mike Shanahan wrote there. This audio segment covers much of the same ground, and makes reference to his book as well).
I downloaded an mp3 audio clip of it (not sure if the forum will let me attach it here, but I'll try). There's a podcast of it or you can stream it from here:
http://www.loe.org/content/2017-01-20/loe_170120_c1_Figs%20Book.mp3
http://www.loe.org/ (look at the content for 20 January 2017)
(It looks like the forum won't let me attach this file -- it's a 13MB mp3 file, audio lasts about 15 minutes. But you can hear it at that link, or download it. And if someone wants to pack it in a zip file you may be able to attach it here, but I'll leave that for others if you're interested). I think I'm going to order this book.
Cheers,
Mike
central NY state, zone 5a