PERSIAN JOURNAL OF ACAROLOGY
Year:2016 | Volume:5 | Issue:2 |Papers Count:9

Mites of the superfamily Eviphidoidea are primarily humus- and litter-inhabiting predators, living in transient habitats such as dung, carrion, and beach wrack and/or in phoretic relationships with a variety of arthropods (Lindquistet al.2009). The genus Copriphis Berlese, 1910 is the largest genus of Eviphididae with about 35 species living in tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, central and southern Europe in association with coprophagous beetles, especially Scarabaeoidea (Karg 1993; Lindquist et al.2009; Masan and Halliday 2009, 2010).

The family Oppiidae Sellnick, 1937 (Acari: Oribatida) is one of the most species rich families of the suborder Oribatida (Subias and Balogh 1989). This cosmopolitan family comprises 134 genera, 39 subgenera, 1, 025 species and 54 subspecies (Subias 2016). Oppiids occur in almost all terrestrial habitats worldwide and they are especially represented in soil, litter and moss samples and fungi make up the bulk of oppiid diets (Subias and Balogh 1989; Norton and Behan- Pelletier 2009). However, Seniczack (1975) found that in addition to feeding on fungi, oppiid mites from Poland also feed on algae, lichen, rotten leaves, humus, and Oppia nitens even on carrion.

The family Canestriniidae contains about 95 genera and 305 species (Haitlinger 2012). In 1991, one male of the Camirohylla feziana was collected from Morocco and described by Haitlinger for the first time. Deutonymph and larva of this species were found from Spain (Balearic Islands) and described in 2001 (Haitlinger 2001). In Iran, fauna of canestriniid mites is unknown. Until now, only one species, Coleopterophagus baali Haitlinger, 1990, was reported and described from Iran.

The oribatid mite family Gehypochthoniidae has a cosmopolitan distribution, however, is absent in the Ethiopian and Antarctic regions. This family consists of only one genus, Gehypochthonius Jacot, 1936, with eight species: G. antonii Lombardini, 1962 "sp. Inq" (distributed in Italy), G. frondifer Aoki, 1975 (Japan), G. gracilis Pankov, 2002 (East Asiatic Russia), G. marianoi Martinez and Bernava Laborde, 2000 (Argentina), G. rhadamanthus Jacot, 1936 (Semicosmopolitan), G. strenzkei Lee, 1982 (Australia), G. urticinus (Berlese, 1910) (Nearctic) and G. xarifae Strenzke, 1963 (Oriental) (Subias 2016). In this paper, we report the first record of the family Gehypochthoniidae and Gehypochthonius rhadamanthus from Iran.

This paper aims to determine whether distances between some setae can be helpful for differentiating two species of the genus Paraphytoseius: P. cracentis and P. orientalis. Specimens examined were collected in the 1970’s in India by V. Prasad. Transverse (j1 - j1, j3 - j3, s4 - s4, Z4 - Z4, and Z5 - Z5) and vertical distances (j3 - s4, s4 - Z4, andz4 - Z5) were measured. It was observed that the transverse distances between the large setal pairsj3 - j3, s4 - s4, Z4 - Z4, and Z5 - Z5 and the vertical distances between the pairsj3 - s4, s4 - Z4, and z4 - Z5 were significantly lower in P. cracentis (Corpuz and Rimando, 1966) than in P. orientalis (Narayanan et al., 1960). The multifactorial analysis also showed a distinction between these two species based on the distances herein considered. Even if more specimens should be considered and more species studied, this work seems to show that in addition to setae measurements, distances between some setae could be helpful for diagnosis (i.e. distance betweens4 - s4 and vertical distance betweens4 - Z4). However, further studies should be conducted to better assess these taxonomic indicators.

In this study, the mite Acinogaster microchaetosus (Sevastianov, 1967) (Acari: Heterostigmata: Neopygmephoridae) associated with Tetramorium sp. (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) is redescribed based on material collected from northern forests of Iran. It is the first record of the genus Acinogaster from Asia including Iran. Distribution and host range of all 11 species of the genus are reviewed.

Pachyseius masanisimilis Ahadiyat and Ghasemi Moghadam sp. nov. is described based on female specimens collected from soil, leaf litter and humus of fruit trees in highland areas of north part of Tehran Province of Iran.

A faunistic survey was carried out on edaphic mites of the cohort Gamasina in the Ecological (Botanical) Garden of Nowshahr, Mazandaran Province, Iran. The samples were taken randomly from different habitats since February 2014 to January 2015. A total of 458 specimens belonging to 34 species, 20 genera, 12 families and five superfamilies were collected and identified from which two species, Gamasolaelaps whartoni(Farrier, 1957) (Veigaiidae) and Pergamasus brevicornis Berlese, 1903 (Parasitidae), reported for the first time from Iran. Among them, the most frequent species wereGamasiphis lanceolatus Karg, 1987 (20.96%), Pachylaelaps grandis Koroleva, 1977 (18.78%) andLaelaspis astronomicus (Koch, 1839) (18.56%), respectively. Furthermore, Laelapidae (24.23%), Ologamasidae (21.61%) and Pachylaelapidae (20.30%) were the most frequent families.

Male competition to fertilize the eggs of females would result in conflicts between the members of one sex and evolution of secondary behavioral and morphological characters. Here, we have investigated the effect of familiarity and morphological traits on Phytoseiulus persimilis Athias- Henriot and Neoseiulus californicus (Oudemans) (Acari: Phytoseiidae) mating combat and precedence. Our results showed no significant difference between the number of familiar and unfamiliarP. persimilis/ N. californicus males mated first. The values of ANOVA to compare the mean length of the first leg, Palp, 2nd cheliceral segment, movable digit and spermatodactyl in prevailed familiar, prevailed unfamiliar, defeated familiar, defeated unfamiliar males in male mating precedence experiment was calculated. None of the morphological characters affected the mating precedence in N. californicus. The length of the cheliceral segments did not affect the male mating precedence in P. persimilis. Tukey HSD post-hoc test for P. persimilis showed that both the first leg and palp were significantly longer in prevailed familiar males rather than that in defeated unfamiliars. Also a significant difference was observed between the length of the palp in prevailed familiar and unfamiliar individuals. The spermatodactyl length was significantly more in prevailed familiars in comparison with defeated ones although no significant difference between prevailed familiars and defeated unfamiliars in P. persimilis. The relationship between morphological characters, mating precedence and inbreeding depression is discussed.