Food bodies

Defense is a further category in which plants employ food rewards to acquire protection by arthropod mutualists. The provision of food sources allows plants to recruit or sustain predators or parasitoids, which, in turn, can provide protection against herbivory. The plant-derived food structures involved in indirect defensive interaction can be divided in two main groups food bodies and extrafloral nectaries. 

In the case of food bodies, the primary mechanism of induction might be food body removal. Risch and Rickson (1981) showed that the production of unicellular food bodies by Piper cenocladum is stimulated by the presence of the mutualist ant Pheidole bicornis. When ants are present, the plant produces 30 times as many food bodies as control plants. Similar effects had previously been reported for other types of food bodies (Carroll and Janzen, 1973). In P. cenocladum, a clerid beetle exploits this relationship. Their larvae are also able to stimulate food body production in the absence of the ants (Letoumeau, 1990). 

Developmental anatomy and ultrastructure of the ant-food bodies (beccariian bodies) of Macaranga triloba and M. Hypoleuca (Euphorbiaceae). American Journal of Botany 67 285-292. 

Risch, S. J. and Rickson, F. R. (1981). Mutualism in which ants must be present before plants produce food bodies. Nature 291 149-150. 

The use of antioxidants in human-contact applications (e.g. food-contact, medical and pharmaceutical) present a challenge in terms of their safety and level of migration into the contact media, e.g. food, body fluids. As an antioxidant, vitamin E is a suitable candidate to explore for such areas of application. 

Paloheimo, J.E. and Dickie, L.M. (1966). Food and growth of fishes. HI. Relations between food, body size and growth efficiency. Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada 2S, 1209-1948. 

Because of its volatility, determination of vinylidene chloride is best by gas chromatography using a variety of detectors, including flame ionization, electron capture, electrolyte conductivity, and mass spectrometry. The major limitation is interference by other constituents of the media being analyzed. Methods are available for quantifying environmental samples (air, water, soil sediment) and biological samples (breath, food, body tissues). 

Botticher, B., and Botticher, D., 1986. Simple rapid determination of thiamin by a HPLC method in foods, body fluids, urine and faeces. International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research. 56 155-159. 

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