Abstract
Myrmecophytic Cecropia trees feed and house ants, presumably in exchange for protection from herbivory. These plants produce ant rewards in the form of Mullerian bodies (MB), glycogen-rich and protein-containing corpuscles located on trichilia at the bases of leaf petioles. Because of indirect evidence for the costliness of MB, we conducted experiments to determine whether plants respond to their removal (simulating the presence of ants) and accumulation (imitating the absence of ants) by altering rates of their production. In greenhouse experiments with plants cultivated at intermediate nutrient levels, MB production rates were significantly higher on plants from which the MB were removed than on control (MB accumulation) plants (...)
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