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1. The impact of habitat fragmentation on domatia-dwelling mites and a mite-plant-fungus tritrophic interaction

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01529-2  

   Graham, Carolyn D.; Warneke, Christopher R.; Weber, Marjorie; Brudvig, Lars A. (December 2022, Landscape Ecology)

   Abstract Context Habitat fragmentation is a leading threat to biodiversity, yet the impacts of fragmentation on most taxa, let alone interactions among those taxa, remain largely unknown. Objectives We studied how three consequences of fragmentation—reduced patch connectivity, altered patch shape, and edge proximity—impact plant-dwelling mite communities and mite-plant-fungus interactions within a large-scale habitat fragmentation experiment. Methods We sampled mite communities from the leaves of Quercus nigra (a plant species that has foliar domatia which harbor fungivorous and predacious mites) near and far from edge within fragments of varying edge-to-area ratio (shape) and connectivity via corridors. We also performed a mite-exclusion experiment across these fragmentation treatments to test the effects of mite presence and fungal hyphal abundance on leaf surfaces. Results Habitat edges influenced the abundance and richness of leaf-dwelling mites; plants closer to the edge had higher mite abundance and species richness. Likewise, hyphal counts were higher on leaves near patch edges. Despite both mite and fungal abundance being higher at patch edges, leaf hyphal counts were not impacted by mite abundance on those leaves. Neither patch shape nor connectivity influenced mite abundance, mite species richness, or the influence of mites on leaf surface fungal abundance. Conclusion Our results suggest that mites and foliar fungi may be independently affected by edge-structured environmental gradients, like temperature, rather than trophic effects. We demonstrate that large-scale habitat fragmentation and particularly edge effects can have impacts on multiple levels of microscopic communities, even in the absence of cascading trophic effects. 

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2. Mite Domatia and Associated Mite Density in a North American Eastern Deciduous Forest in Michigan

   https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.71379  

   Graham, Carolyn_D K; Bailey, Lillian R; Cole, Ashley E; Cress, Anna M; Dawson‐Glass, Emma; Duke, Bailee D; Estill, Liam J; Jones, Lauren D; Leon, Gabrielle R; Molino, Samantha; et al (April 2025, Ecology and Evolution)

   ABSTRACT Mite–plant defense mutualisms are among the most common defense mutualisms in the world—yet studies providing basic information on their prevalence in plant communities remain rare. Here, we systematically surveyed common woody plants in a North American deciduous forest for the presence of plant–mite mutualistic interactions. We scored 16 common woody species in a wooded natural area for the presence and number of mite domatia—small structures on the underside of plant leaves that are known to house mutualistic mites. We found that 80% of common woody species in the forest had mite domatia, the highest reported percentage of mite domatia in any survey conducted thus far. We paired our survey with a quantification of the number of mites found on each leaf and investigated the relationship between mite domatia and mite abundance within and across species. We found that plants with mite domatia had significantly more mites on their leaves than species that lacked mite domatia, and that plants with more domatia had more mites. Together, our study provides much needed systematic survey data on plant–mite mutualism prevalence in an important plant community and points to northern temperate forests as a promising system to study plant–mite mutualisms in high densities in the future. 

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3. Biodiversity enhances the multitrophic control of arthropod herbivory

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6603  

   Barnes, A. D.; Scherber, C.; Brose, U.; Borer, E. T.; Ebeling, A.; Gauzens, B.; Giling, D. P.; Hines, J.; Isbell, F.; Ristok, C.; et al (November 2020, Science Advances)

   null (Ed.)

   Arthropod herbivores cause substantial economic costs that drive an increasing need to develop environmentally sustainable approaches to herbivore control. Increasing plant diversity is expected to limit herbivory by altering plant-herbivore and predator-herbivore interactions, but the simultaneous influence of these interactions on herbivore impacts remains unexplored. We compiled 487 arthropod food webs in two long-running grassland biodiversity experiments in Europe and North America to investigate whether and how increasing plant diversity can reduce the impacts of herbivores on plants. We show that plants lose just under half as much energy to arthropod herbivores when in high-diversity mixtures versus monocultures and reveal that plant diversity decreases effects of herbivores on plants by simultaneously benefiting predators and reducing average herbivore food quality. These findings demonstrate that conserving plant diversity is crucial for maintaining interactions in food webs that provide natural control of herbivore pests. 

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4. Micromorphology and chemistry of mite domatia: mutualistic trait convergence and variation across eight sympatric north American species

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-026-01162-6  

   Glos, Rosemary_A E; Soule, Abrianna J; Adams, Abigail Rose; Arnett, Macy; Eckman, Josephine Marie; Hane, Quinn Isabella; Logan, Avery Marie; Morterud, Emma Rose; Noeker, Dominick J; Talbot, Christopher A; et al (June 2026, Symbiosis)

   Abstract Mite domatia — small structures on plant leaves that house mutualistic mites — are widespread across plants yet remain relatively understudied. Here we investigate the chemistry and micromorphology of mite domatia across sympatric species of broadleaf deciduous woody species that have convergently evolved tuft-form mite domatia. Specifically, we test whether domatia display similar micromorphological and chemical properties using metabolomics and scanning electron microscopy across multiple independent sympatric lineages. To identify domatia-specific phenotypes, we also compare tissue within domatia to that of nearby leaf tissue on each of the four domatium-bearing species, and test whether species with domatia exhibit reduced chemical defense relative to species that lack domatia using four additional species that lack prominent domatia as a control. We found that domatium-bearing species had significantly lower total phenolic concentrations and lower total defense compound abundance compared to control species, consistent with an evolutionary trade-off between chemical and mutualistic defense. However, within leaves, domatium tissue chemical defense did not differ from surrounding laminar tissue. In contrast, trichome morphology showed clear convergent modification: domatium trichomes were 24–31% longer than trichomes elsewhere on the leaf, a pattern reversed in control species. Together, our findings shed light on the degree of phenotypic convergence in a widespread, ecologically important trait. 

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5. Complex multitrophic species interactions and fitness costs: Intricate consequences of jasmonate and salicylate induced plant defences

   https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.70243  

   Kersch‐Becker, Mônica F; Pinheiro, Guilherme P; Schweller, Thaís S; Pareja, Martin; Pocius, Victoria M; Trigo, José R; Romero, Gustavo Q (April 2026, Journal of Animal Ecology)

   Abstract - Induced plant defences regulated by jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) initiate a cascade of effects, from defence expression to changes in arthropod community structure and species interactions that can ultimately influence plant fitness. Yet the long‐term consequences of these processes remain poorly understood, particularly in perennial tropical systems. We investigated how activation of JA and SA signalling pathways shapes arthropod community composition and plant reproductive success in Trichogoniopsis adenantha (Asteraceae), a glandular trichome‐bearing shrub native to the Brazilian Atlantic rainforest. Using chemical elicitors, we induced JA and SA defences for up to 16 months and monitored herbivore and predator assemblages, herbivory patterns, trichome expression, pyrrolizidine alkaloid concentrations and plant short‐term fecundity. JA‐elicited plants exhibited higher pyrrolizidine alkaloid levels in flowers, reduced leaf herbivory and lower seed damage by pre‐dispersal seed predators. However, these plants experienced increased colonization by sap‐feeding insects. In contrast, SA‐elicited plants were more vulnerable to chewing herbivores but more resistant to sap‐feeders. Despite similar reductions in seed predation across both treatments, JA and SA induction significantly reduced ovary fertilization, likely due to changes in floral traits and decreased pollinator visitation, ultimately imposing substantial fitness costs. Additionally, seasonal turnover in arthropod communities was accompanied by temporal variation in how defences structured species composition and abundance. Our findings demonstrate that phytohormone‐mediated defences can simultaneously induce resistance and susceptibility across herbivore guilds, with divergent impacts on predator associations. Although defence induction reduced herbivore damage, it compromised short‐term fecundity, revealing trade‐offs between defence and reproduction. By linking induced defences to multitrophic interactions over time, this study highlights the ecological complexity of plant defence strategies in biodiverse tropical ecosystems. 

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