Pearl Bodies as Ant Food: An Ecological Role for Some Leaf Emergences of Tropical Plants

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Abstract
Pearl bodies, single or multi-celled leaf emergences, are characterized by a lustrous, pearl-like appearance, a spherical or club-like shape with a basal constriction, ease of detachment from the plant, storage of relatively large quantities of lipid and a limited size range, usually from 0.5-3.0 mm in length. They are broadly distributed in the Dicotyledonae and have been reported in 19 families and 50 genera, all of tropical or subtropical affinity. Several lines of evidence implicate these structures in plant-ant association; these are: at the generic level, the presence of pearl bodies is often associated (48%) with other anti-related features of the plant such as specialized domatia and extrafloral nectaries; when domatia or extrafloral nectaries are present, pearl-body production is parallel in time and space and ants are known to collect pearl bodies from leaves and return them to their nests. Pearl bodies play an important role in many tropical plant-ant mutualisms.

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