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Science 5 April 1991:
Vol. 252. no. 5002, pp. 99 - 101
DOI: 10.1126/science.252.5002.99
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Articles

Mite-Plant Associations from the Eocene of Southern Australia

DENNIS J. O'DOWD 1, CHRISTINE R. BREW 1, DAVID C. CHRISTOPHEL 2, and ROY A. NORTON 3

1 Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
2 Department of Botany, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia 5001, Australia
3 College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, Syracuse, NY 13210

Acarodomatia or "mite houses" are located on leaves of many present-day angiosperms and are inhabited by mites that may maintain leaf hygiene. Eocene deposits in southern Australia have yielded acarodomatia on fossil leaves of Elaeocarpaceae and Lauraceae and also contain oribatid mites with close affinities to those that inhabit the acarodomatia of the closest living relatives of the fossil plant taxa. The data indicate that mite-plant associations may have been widespread in southern Australia 40 million years ago.

Submitted on July 30, 1990
Accepted on January 9, 1991


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Molecular phylogeny and dating reveals an Oligo-Miocene radiation of dry-adapted shrubs (former Tremandraceae) from rainforest tree progenitors (Elaeocarpaceae) in Australia.
D. M. Crayn, M. Rossetto, and D. J. Maynard (2006)
Am. J. Botany 93, 1328-1342
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Paleobiology of middle Eocene plant-insect associations from the Pacific Northwest: A preliminary report.
C. C. Labandeira and C. C. Labandeira (2002)
Rocky Mountain Geology 37, 31-59
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »


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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)