The bugs eat them up. We have in this country the relative of the cowpea beetle that is so notorious in India and Pakistan, for example. It's the black bruchid beetle in prairie clover. Since commercial production of native legumes concentrates many plants in a small area for hungry beetles to munch on, Boe and fellow scientist Paul Johnson, entomologist at SDSU, wondered if legumes spread out in a natural setting would be as attractive and as accessible to the beetles. If they weren't, scientists interested in seed production for future revegetation might have better luck collecting from wild sources.
Natural communities work that way.
These wasps, often little bigger than the period at the end of this sentence, are carnivorous. Their meal of choice is the larvae of the beetles and midges that destroy legume seeds. Pod collections in bulk from 37 different sites carried immature beetles in every sample. For its own purposes, the carnivorous wasp has a great sense of timing, Boe found at Oak Lake. And it's probably okay that the wasp's schedule doesn't perfectly fit the needs of the legume plant.