A Forest Pool as a Habitat Island for Mites in a Limestone Forest in Southern Norway

Abstract

Forest water bodies, e.g., pools, constitute ‘environmental islands’ within forests, with specific flora and fauna thus contributing considerably to the landscape biodiversity. The mite communities of Oribatida and Mesostigmata in two distinctive microhabitats, water-soaked Sphagnum mosses at the edge of a pool and other mosses growing on the medium-wet forest floor nearby, were compared in a limestone forest in Southern Norway. In total, 16,189 specimens of Oribatida representing 98 species, and 499 specimens of Mesostigmata, from 23 species, were found. The abundance and species number of Oribatida were significantly lower at the pool, while the abundance and species richness of Mesostigmata did not differ. Both the communities of Oribatida and of Mesostigmata differed among the microhabitats studied and analysis showed significant differences between the community structures in the two microhabitats. The most abundant oribatid species in Sphagnum mosses was Parachipteria fanzagoi (Jacot, 1929), which made up over 30% of all Oribatida, followed by Atropacarus striculus (C.L. Koch, 1835) and Tyrphonothrus maior (Berlese, 1910) (14% and 12% of Oribatida, respectively). Among Mesostigmata Paragamasus parrunciger (Bhattacharyya, 1963) dominated (44% of Mesostigmata), followed by P. lapponicus (Trägårdh, 1910) (14% of Mesostigmata). Most of these species, except P. lapponicus, were either absent or very uncommon in the other microhabitat studied. The specific acarofauna of the forest pool shows the importance of such microhabitats in increasing forest diversity. In addition, a quarter of the mite species found had not been reported from Norwegian broadleaf forests before, including five new species records for Norway and four new to Fennoscandia, all found in the medium-wet microhabitat. Most of these species are rarely collected and have their northernmost occurrence in the studied forest.

Inclusion of juvenile stages improves diversity assessment and adds to our understanding of mite ecology – A case study from mires in Norway

“…Full names of the mites are given in Table 2 and Appendix S1 , while in the figures, abbreviations are used. The new records of Mesostigmata for Norway refer to the most recent checklist (Gwiazdowicz & Gulvik, 2005a ) and later references (Bolger, Devlin, & Seniczak, 2018 ; Castilho et al, 2015 ; Gwiazdowicz et al, 2013 ; Gwiazdowicz & Gulvik, 2005b , 2007 ; Kaczmarek et al, 2021 ; Kvifte et al, 2022 ; Neves Esteca et al, 2020 ; Seniczak, Bolger, Roth, et al, 2019 ; Seniczak, Niedbała, Iturrondobeitia, et al, 2021 ; Seniczak, Seniczak, Graczyk, et al, 2021 ; Seniczak, Seniczak, Iturrondobeitia, et al, 2020 ; Seniczak, Seniczak, Schwarzfeld, et al, 2020 ; Seniczak, Seniczak, Starý, et al, 2021 ; Słomian et al, 2005 ; Thunes et al, 2021 ; Venancio et al, 2016 ) while those of Trombidiformes are based on the checklist of Mehl ( 1979 ) and Stålstedt et al ( 2019 ). The new records of Sarcoptiformes for Norway are based on the checklists of Mehl ( 1979 ) and Seniczak, Seniczak, Iturrondobeitia, et al ( 2020 ); Seniczak, Seniczak, Schwarzfeld, et al ( 2020 ).…”

“…They also host the highest diversity of the oribatid mites (a group within Sarcoptiformes) ever found in this type of habitat, largely explained by the large Sphagnum diversity . In limited sampling in Norwegian mires, up to 95 species of Oribatida were found (i.e., 30% of known species in Norway), which is comparable to the diversity of this group in broadleaf forests (Seniczak, Niedbała, Iturrondobeitia, et al, 2021;Seniczak, Seniczak, Graczyk, et al, 2021;Seniczak, Seniczak, Starý, et al, 2021). These included 18 new records for Norway and two species new to science .…”

“…Full names of the mites are given in Table 2 and Appendix S1, while in the figures, abbreviations are used. The new records of Mesostigmata for Norway refer to the most recent checklist (Gwiazdowicz & Gulvik, 2005a) and later references (Bolger, Devlin, & Seniczak, 2018;Castilho et al, 2015;Gwiazdowicz et al, 2013;Gwiazdowicz & Gulvik, 2005b, 2007Kvifte et al, 2022;Neves Esteca et al, 2020;Seniczak, Bolger, Roth, et al, 2019;Seniczak, Niedbała, Iturrondobeitia, et al, 2021;Seniczak, Seniczak, Graczyk, et al, 2021;Seniczak, Seniczak, Iturrondobeitia, et al, 2020;Seniczak, Seniczak, Schwarzfeld, et al, 2020;Seniczak, Seniczak, Starý, et al, 2021;Słomian et al, 2005;Thunes et al, 2021;Venancio et al, 2016)…”

Mites (Oribatida and Mesostigmata) and Vegetation as Complementary Bioindicators in Peatlands

“…Mesostigmata had far less bioindicator value as was observed from a forest pond in Norway (Seniczak et al, 2021). However, as with Oribatida, Mesostigmata had low diversity in dystrophic ponds (S = 1-3, Hs = 0.00-0.78) and at most of these ponds the aquatic species, Platyseius italicus was most abundant.…”

Linked seasonality between a phoretic mite and its moth fly host (Parasitiformes: Mesostigmata and Diptera: Psychodidae)

“…They were identified to species level, using universally applied keys (Ghilyarov and Bregetova, 1977; Hyatt, 1980; Karg, 1993; Kalúz and Fenda, 2005; Gwiazdowicz, 2007. The information on the Mesostigmata of Norway is based on the checklist (Gwiazdowicz and Gulvik, 2005a) and later references (Gwiazdowicz and Gulvik, 2007; Gwiazdowicz et al, 2013; Bolger et al, 2018; Seniczak et al, 2019, 2020, 2021a. Specimens in ethanol and on microscope slides are deposited in the entomological collections, University Museum of Bergen (ZMUB).…”