농업생명과학연구 45(3) pp.19-23 Journal of Agriculture & Life Science 45(3) pp.19-23 ABSTRACT In this study three types of domatia; Tuft (T), Pocket-Tuft (PT) and Pocket (P) were observed on some species of the genus Cornus. Cornus officinalis Sieb & Zuee and C. florida Linnaeus possess T type, C. controversa Hemsl and C. walteri Wangerin possess PT type while C. alba Linnaeus possess P type. A total of 120 leaves were investigated for foliar mite’s population. T type domatia was the habitat of 329 mites (48.89%), followed by PT type where 198 mites (29.41%) were found, and the least favored was the P type domatia that accommodated 146 mites (21.70%) out of 673 mites in total. The mean number of mites per domatia was 8(±0.22), 4(±0.95) and 3(±0.70) for T, PT and P type, respectively. The alternative hypothesis that foliar mites prefer T type domatia as a habitat than PT and P type domatia was accepted based on these findings at a probability of P<0.05. Thus, it was concluded that foliar mites prefer T type domatia than the other two types. This could be due to the nature and efficiency of T type domatia in ensuring mites protection from predators and unfriendly environmental conditions. Therefore, the presence of denser tufts lowers the risks of predation and unfriendly environmental conditions and results in a higher number of mites. Key words - Domatia, Pocket, Tufts, Cornus, Foliar mites, Predators Life on Leaves: Which Type of Domatia in Cornus Species is Most Preferred by Foliar Mites? Issakwisa Bernard Ngondya 2,3 Bong-Gyu Kim 1* Rashid Ismael Hag Ibrahim 4 1 Bio/Molecular Informatics Center (BMIC), Konkok University, Seoul 143-701, Korea 2 Dept. of Forest Resources, College of Agriculture, Graduate School of Industry, Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology, Jinju 660-758, Korea 3 Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism, Wildlife Division, Ivory Room, Nyerere Road P.O Box 1994 Dar-Es-salaam, Tanzania 4 Dept. of Horticulture, College of Life Sci. and Natural Res., Gyeongnam National University of Science and Technology, Jinju 660-758, Korea Received: MAR. 08. 2011, Revised: APR. 27. 2011, Accepted: JUN. 23. 2011 I. INTRODUCTION One of the core themes in ecology is to understand the mechanisms that shape population and community structures (Dicke & Hilker, 2003). Apart from biotic factors, numerous abiotic interactions between organisms and environment such as habitat preference, feeding, defense and predation, affect the population growth and dynamics of biotic ecosystems. Leaf domatia are small morphogenetic structures on the leaf undersurface that enclose minute spaces, may be an evolutionary legacy of a mutualistic association between plants and mites (Marquis & Whelan, 1996; Kim et al., 2010). According to O’Dowd & Pemberton (1998), plant species with domatia have been surveyed in only few regions of the world and it was found that their relative frequency is high in a large number of plant species, especially in the temperate broad-leafed deciduous forests of the Northern hemisphere. Previous studies (O’Dowd & Willson, 1989, 1991; Norton et al., 2000) showed that domatia are principally associated with elevated densities of predatory and fungivorous mites that are potentially beneficial to the plant, i.e. the higher the number of predatory mites on certain leaves the less *Corresponding author: Bong-Gyu Kim Tel: +82-010-4780-1029 Fax: +82-2-3437-6106 E-mail: dkimbk@hanmail.net