Abstract
The article presented here is the continuation of a study on the importance of dead wood for the biodiversity of the Uropodina (Acari: Parasitiformes) communities inhabiting dead wood. The major aim of this study is to check whether the species of tree can have any impact on the species composition and abundance of uropodine mite communities inhabiting dead wood. The next aim of the study is to test the following hypotheses: (1) Uropodina exhibit preferences for certain tree species; and (2) communities differ depending on the region and time of the samples collection. The material for the analysis consists of samples from different types of dead wood merocenoses and 37 species of trees, and were collected across the whole area of Poland. More Uropodina species were collected from the dead wood of broadleaved species than from coniferous species. The tree species in which communities of the studied mites were the richest were beech, oak, pine, spruce, linden, and hornbeam. The analysis of habitat preferences of Uropodina mites for particular tree species has revealed that none of the analyzed mite species did not occur in the dead wood samples from all tree species. Another important result is that the mite communities found in the samples from the same tree species remained similar in each decade of the research. The results also show that the communities of Uropodina inhabiting dead wood of the same tree species in different regions of Poland had different species composition, which stems from differences in the range of occurrence of these mites species.
Highlights
Biodiversity is currently one of the most widely used terms in biological studies, and the loss of biodiversity on a global scale, including mites, has already become a serious problem [1,2]
In the case of five species of trees, no specimens of Uropodina mites were found in the dead wood samples
The dead wood samples from the other tree species contained 29,931 specimens of Uropodina mites, which represented 54 taxa, 50 of which were designated at the species level
Summary
Biodiversity is currently one of the most widely used terms in biological studies, and the loss of biodiversity on a global scale, including mites, has already become a serious problem [1,2] In this context, the impact of dead wood merocenoses in forest ecosystems on species diversity and the abundance of mite communities (Acari) is important. Very few studies focus on the impact of the conditions which are associated with the presence of dead wood, such as the type of merocenosis, extent of wood decay, humidity, or tree species from which the dead wood samples have been collected Those few studies [5,8] discuss only groups from the higher taxonomic rank (i.e., Oribatida, Mesostigmata), and there are no studies which focus on the lower taxonomic ranks, including mites from the suborder Uropodina (Acari: Parasitiformes)
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