Marginal leaf galls on Pliocene leaves from India indicate mutualistic behavior between Ipomoea plants and Eriophyidae mites

We report a new type of fossil margin galls arranged in a linear series on dicot leaf impressions from the latest Neogene (Pliocene) sediments of the Chotanagpur Plateau, Jharkhand, eastern India. We collected ca. 1500 impression and compression leaf fossils, of which 1080 samples bear arthropod damage referable to 37 different damage types (DT) in the 'GuidetoInsect(andOther)DamageTypesinCompressedPlantFossils'. A few leaf samples identified as Ipomoea L. (Convolvulaceae) have specific margin galls that do not match any galling DT previously described. This type of galling is characterized by small, linearly arranged, irregular, sessile, sub-globose, solitary, indehiscent, solid pouch-galls with irregular ostioles. The probable damage inducers of the present galling of the foliar margin might be members of Eriophyidae (Acari). The new type of gall suggests that marginal gall-inducing mites on leaves of Ipomoea did not change their host preference at the genus level since the Pliocene. The development of marginal leaf galling in Ipomoea is linked to extrafloral nectaries that do not offer protection against arthropod galling but indirectly protect the plant against herbivory from large mammals.

Automated summary

We report a new type of fossil margin galls arranged in a linear series on dicot leaf impressions from the latest Neogene (Pliocene) sediments of the Chotanagpur Plateau, Jharkhand, eastern India. The new type of gall suggests that marginal gall-inducing mites on leaves of Ipomoea did not change their host preference at the genus level since the Pliocene. The development of marginal leaf galling in Ipomoea is linked to extrafloral nectaries that do not offer protection against arthropod galling but indirectly protect the plant against herbivory from large mammals.