Abstract
BackgroundRhinonyssid mites are permanent parasites of birds that inhabit their respiratory tract. There are around 600 species described worldwide and almost all species of birds are found to have embedded rhinonyssid mites. Despite their presumed relevance, these mites are largely unstudied due to the difficulty in sampling them and, therefore, the majority of mite-host associations and species-prevalence data are unknown.New informationIn this study, 179 mite specimens belonging to 27 species and eight genera were identified. Notably, 18 new mite-bird associations were documented for the first time, thus increasing the known host range for these mite species. In addition, mite-host associations found in this study were compared with known associations from these species of birds in the European part of Russia and in Europe. Overall, this study represents the largest survey to date carried out on rhinonyssid mites in Russia and one of the most comprehensive datasets on rhinonyssid host-range.
Highlights
Nasal mites of the family Rhinonyssidae are permanent haematophagous endoparasites of birds that inhabit their respiratory tract (Vitzthum 1935; George 1961; Fain 1994; Dimov and de Rojas 2012)
Host specificity of rhinonyssid mites has been found to vary from one genus to another by surveys across different geographic areas (e.g. USA, Spicer 1987; Canada, Knee et al 2008)
The rhinonyssid mite species collected from 2,107 bird individuals from 75 bird species at 41 sites in Northwest Russia were reported
Summary
Rhinonyssid mites are permanent parasites of birds that inhabit their respiratory tract. There are around 600 species described worldwide and almost all species of birds are found to have embedded rhinonyssid mites. Despite their presumed relevance, these mites are largely unstudied due to the difficulty in sampling them and, the majority of mite-host associations and species-prevalence data are unknown. 18 new mite-bird associations were documented for the first time, increasing the known host range for these mite species. This study were compared with known associations from these species of birds in the European part of Russia and in Europe. This study represents the largest survey to date carried out on rhinonyssid mites in Russia and one of the most comprehensive datasets on rhinonyssid host-range
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