Relationships between eriophyoid mites and their host plants, with a case review of Eriophyoidea fauna of China

Abstract

Eriophyoid mites occur on many plant parts such as leaf, bud, stem and fruit. They cause direct damages including galls, erineum, blisters, deformation and discolouration to host plants, as well as indirect damage by spreading viruses. The majority of the known species are also host specialists. The relationship between eriophyoids and their host plants was reviewed for Chinese Eriophyoidea. The Chinese eriophyoid mites exhibit great specificity on their hosts and most of them feed on a single host plant, fewer on two or several hosts in the same host genus, and even fewer on two or several genera of hosts. The three families of Eriophyoidea differ from each other in occurring on different major taxa of host plants and on different parts on the hosts: the Phytoptidae is better represented on conifers than Eriophyidae and Diptilomiopidae. The Eriophyidae includes many genera of leaf vagrants and all the gall and erineum-inducing mites in China. All the Chinese diptilomiopid mites are vagrants on host plants and are primarily on dicots. The coevolution between eriophyoid mites and host plants is discussed, and problems in coevolution research are also raised.