Seasonal fluctuations in foliar mite populations on Viburnum erosum Thunb. var. punctatum Franch. et Sav. (Adoxaceae) and sympatric shrubs in temperate secondary forests in western Japan

Abstract

Fine leaf structures, such as leaf domatia or trichomes, are considered to affect the population abundance and diversity of foliar mites on forest trees and shrubs; however, the effect of such structures on seasonal fluctuations in foliar mite populations in forest ecosystems remains unknown. The authors conducted a 2-year survey on the outskirts of Kyoto on the mite assemblage found on Viburnum erosum var. punctatum (VEP), a deciduous shrub bearing domatia and stellate hairs, and on its seasonal fluctuations. A census was also conducted on the acarofauna on 14 sympatric tree or shrub species; these communities were then compared with those found on VEP. On VEP, fungivorous mites, Winterschmidtiidae and Tydeoidea, showed continuous occurrence from late March to November, and phytoseiid mites were recorded from May to November. Eriophyioid mites were only found in spring and autumn. Total mite density was significantly higher on plant species with fine structures, and the acarofauna on such plants showed high similarity among seasons. Our data suggest that leaf-surface structures play important roles in structuring foliar mite communities throughout the seasons.

Do plant mites commonly prefer the underside of leaves?

“…Consequently, 20 individuals were added to normalize the number of replication among the categories of leaf surface morphology (see the section "Definition of leaf-surface morphology"), and 148 individual plants in total other than VEP were used for the four sampling periods (Table 1). Foliar acarofauna and their seasonal fluctuations at these two study sites during [2007][2008], with details of the plants used, have been reported by Sudo et al (2010).…”

“…Plants bearing such foliar structures harbor more predaceous and fungivorous mites, such as Phytoseiidae or Tydeoidea, relative to herbivorous mites (O'Dowd and Willson 1989;O'Dowd and Pemberton 1998;Sudo et al 2010). However, high and dense leaf hairs are also effective in retaining spider mites and, therefore, might reduce both the direct and indirect effects of predatory mites such as phytoseiids (Oku et al 2006).…”

“…Consequently, the question arose as to whether the variation of leaf structures influences the distribution of mites and/or their strategy of resource exploitation between adaxial and abaxial leaf surfaces. Sudo et al (2010) reported that in a temperate forest, woody plant species such as Viburnum erosum Thunb. var.…”

“…(Adoxaceae; hereafter abbreviated as VEP) with domatia and/or trichomes harbor more mites than those without such microstructures. Major mite taxa found on VEP were the predaceous family Phytoseiidae, the herbivorous superfamily Eriophyoidea, the fungivorous family Winterschmidtiidae, and the fungivorous (Walter and Proctor 1999) superfamily Tydeoidea (Sudo et al 2010). In this study, we inspected the effects of leaf morphology on the adaxial-abaxial leaf-surface distribution of mites on VEP and other sympatric trees or shrub species in the temperate forests in Kyoto, west-central Japan.…”

Development and Oviposition of Six Native Phytoseiid Species (Acari: Phytoseiidae) Reared on Pink Citrus Rust Mite, Aculops pelekassi (Keifer) (Acari: Eriophyidae)

“…Although P. nipponicus has been collected from Hokkaido to Kyushu including citrus-growing areas (Toyoshima et al, 2013), the information of basic biological characteristics of this species is limited (Gotoh et al, 2007;Kishimoto et al, 2014;Sudo et al, 2010;Toyoshima et al, 2008). Thus, as the next step, further studies are needed to accumulate more detailed data on the habitat plants and alternative foods of P. nipponicus.…”