PERSIAN JOURNAL OF ACAROLOGY
Year:2016 | Volume:5 | Issue:1|Papers Count:9

Rodents, as the most common mammal species around the world, are indicated as one of the main health problems to humans, especially in the populated areas. Since most of the rodent species are considered as suitable reservoirs for many zoonotic diseases and serious pathogens, their ectoparasitic fauna has become of special interest (Nava et al. 2003).

Oribatid mites were collected from soils sampled in Iran by students of the Vali-e-Asr University of Rafsanjan in the Kerman Province. Nearly all oribatid species could be taxonomically recognized to the specific level excepting two which were only recognized to genus level and award future description. Although many oribatid mites of Iran are known, one previous work identified only one oribatid mite species for the Kerman Province. This work gives the additional 13 oribatid mite species which constitute new citations for the Kerman Province. A few new citations from Provinces of Isfahan and Mazandaran are also included.

A new species of Cunaxoides, C. shahriari Bagheri, Paktinat-Saeij and Castro sp. nov., is described from soil, humus and moss from northern Iran. A key to the Cunaxoides species of Iran is also provided.

Hypochthoniella minutissima (Berlese, 1904) is newly reported from Guilan Province, Iran. After comparison with the original description and redescriptions, we here provide an expanded description, including illustrations of the adult, based on material collected from Guilan Province, Iran. A checklist and an identification key to the 20 species of enarthronotic oribatid mites of Guilan Province are provided. The genus and subgenusEohypochthonius (Eohypochthonius) Jacot, and the species Eohypochthonius (Eohypochthonius) magnus Aoki, E. (E.) crassisetiger Aoki, Cosmochthonius (Cosmochthonius) plumatus Berlese, Brachychthonius impressus Moritz andB. hungaricus (Balogh) are new records for the Iran mite fauna.

Laelaspis natanziensissp. nov., a new laelapid mite (Acari: Mesostigmata) is described and illustrated based on females and male collected in the nest of Tetramoriumsp. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) in Natanz region, Isfahan Province, Iran.

Three eriophyoid mites (two new genera and three new combinations) from Thailand are redescribed herein. They are: Phutsona gen. nov., Ph. ervatamiae (Chandrapatya, 1991)comb. nov. on Gardenia jasminoides J. Ellis (Rubiaceae) [the original host plant, Ervatamia coronaria, was an error in identification]; Lipacarus gen. nov. , L. eugeniae (Boczek, 1992) comb. nov. on Syzygium samarangense (Blume) Merr. and L.M. Perry (Myrtaceae); Pentacecidophyes litchi (Boczek, 1996) comb. nov.onLitchi chinensis Sonn. (Sapindaceae). Pentacecidophyes is reassigned to Eriophyidae, Phyllocoptinae, Phyllocoptini. Pentacecidophyes xinglongis Xue, Cheng and Hong, 2011 is considered as a junior synonym ofPe. litchi.

Rodents' significant role in transmission of serious zoonotic diseases is considered as an interesting subject in public attention. With respect to the importance of arthropod-infested rodents in zoonotic diseases transmission and extent distribution of Mus musculus, the present study aimed to analyze the interrelationship between hosts' sex and age of M. musculus with the ectoparasites prevalence in Mashhad and vicinity, northeast of Iran. Mites, ticks and lice were cleared in Nesbit and fleas were made transparent by 10% KOH and then individually mounted in Hoyer's medium. They were identified with the aid of valid identification keys. A total of 267 ectoparsites belonging to eight species were collected from 93 hosts (48.38% male vs.51.62% female). Among parasite groups, mites, ticks, lice and fleas occurred in prevalence of 46.06%, 22.84%, 16.85% and 14.23%, respectively. Our results demonstrated significant higher ectoparasite burden on male hosts for Haemolaelaps sp., Nosopsyllus fasciatus, Ctenophthalmus sp. And Laelaps algericus. However, two tick species of Haemaphysalis punctata and Haemaphysalissp. showed a tendency of higher prevalence in females and no significant difference in the prevalence of lice species of Hoplopleura captiosa were observed between the host sexes. Similarly, no significant differences in ectoparasite infestations were observed between the age categories.

The prey preference of polyphagous predators plays an important role in suppressing different species of herbivorous mites and insects. Prey stages preference of the predatory mite, Amblyseius swirskii Athias-Henriot was investigated among egg, protonymph and deutonymph ofTetranychus urticae Koch and egg, first and second instar nymphs of Bemisia tabaciGennadius. All experiments were conducted using bean (cultivar: Alamoti) leaf discs in Petri dishes (9 cm in diameter) under laboratory condition with 25±2oC, 70 ± 5% RH and 16 L: 8 D photoperiod. The preference for female predator was calculated with Manly’s preference index (b). Comparison of the preference indices using a t-test showed thatA. swirskii consumed significantly more eggs than protonymphs and deutonymphs of T. urticae. There was also a significant difference between consumed protonymphs and deutonymphs of T. urticae. A. swirskii consumed significantly more eggs than second instar nymphs of B. tabaci. There was a significant difference between first instar nymphs and second instar nymphs of B. tabaci and between eggs and first instar nymphs ofB. tabaci. Our findings suggest that prey stages had effect on the prey selection of A. swirskii.

Rice sheath mite, Steneotarsonemus spinki Smiley (Acari: Tarsonemidae), was observed to pose a serious threat to the rice cultivation under Bengal Basin of West Bengal, India during wet season. The mite appeared during tillering to panicle emergence with a maximum population encountered during early ripening stage of the crop causing characteristic brownish specks on the leaf sheath and on the grains resulting poor yield particularly in case of susceptible rice cultivars, IET-4786, IR-36, IET-4094 and many others high yielding varieties. Field experiment was carried out in a randomized complete block design with 11 treatments, comprising different organicinorganic nutrients combination. The result of the experiment reveals that the mite population significantly varied among different treatments with a maximum mite population colonized (930 mites/ leaf sheath) in chemical fertilized plots and a minimum recorded (108 mites/leaf sheath) in leaf manure ofGliricidia sepium (Jacq.) treated plots. However, maximum seed yield (fresh rough grain) was obtained from chemical fertilizer treated plots (8.23 t/ha) followed by combined application of mustard cake, Gliricidia leaf manure and chemical fertilizers (7.37 t/ha) treated plots and the minimum yield was recorded from control plots (4.60 t/ha).