Edaphic mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) from three regions of Ecuador

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Melo-Molina, Elsa Liliana
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: eng
• Instituição de defesa: Biblioteca Digitais de Teses e Dissertações da USP
• Palavras-chave em Português: Amazon; Amazônia; Coast; Diversidade; Diversity; Highland; Litoral; Serra; Taxonomia; Taxonomy
• Link de acesso: https://www.teses.usp.br/teses/disponiveis/11/11146/tde-10052022-153044/

It is known that Ecuador is a megadiverse country, favored by the ecosystems it has. It is to be expected that this is also reflected in the mite populations. In what refers to those present in the soil and litter, this group has different habits, among which are the regulation of soil conditions and their role as biological controllers of pests. The current study aimed at measuring this diversity, concentrating on the Mesostigmata order, in the three continental Ecuadorian regions: Amazon, Coast and Highland, in cultivated and non-cultivated environments, in soil substrate and litter, which in turn made it possible to make supplementary descriptions of species from Ecuador and others already described with little detail. For this, samples were taken in the wet season between 2018 and 2019. The mites were extracted using the modified Berlese-Tullgren method. First, a differentiation of the mite orders was made and later mesostigmatid mites were identified. In Chapter 2, the diversity and abundance of the mesostigmatid mites collected from the three regions are shown, relating to the environments where they were collected. In some cases, identification of species was possible. But in in most cases the mites were identified to morphospecies, within the 16 families identified. Chapter 3 refers specifically to selected species of the family Ologamasidae, including the description of a new species (Gamasiphis n. sp.) and supplementary descriptions of G. plenosetosus Karg and G. salvadori Castilho, Narita & Moraes, with new reports from Ecuador.