Morphological and ecological studies on the diversity and function of domatia in Viburnum

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Leaf domatia are plant organs that have received increasing attention in ecology because of their role in tritrophic interactions. Still there are few studies examining the domatium diversity within a certain plant taxon in terms of their evolutionary history or ecology. We investigated the variation of domatia in the genus Vibrunum, comparing their morphology and phylogeny (obtained by other literatures), and observing their mite fauna in different species, different locality, and different seasons. The results are that there was not a specific correspondence between the presence/absence of domatia and the distribution or phylogeny of the Vibrunum species, and that different fauna or biomass of mites were recognized in the different species, locality, or seasons for domatia of a few Vibrunum species we examined. These results suggest that the domatia of Vibrunum might have evolved independently in different clades of the genus, and that interaction between the domatia and the mites are not so strict but rather loose, depending on the place or seasons.