New data to the mite fauna of Hungarian bamboo plantations

Abstract

Five different bamboo plantations were investigated on the basis of the leaf litter inhabiting mites. 11 Mesostigmata and 10 Oribatida are listed from the leaf litters, of which three species, e.g. Vulgarogamasus kraepelini (Berlese, 1905), Nothrus parvus Sitnikova, 1975, Metabelba paravulverosa Moritz, 1966 are new to the Hungarian fauna.Keywords: Acari, Mesostigmata, Oribatida, bamboo leaf litter, new occurrences, Hungary.Acarological researches have a long tradition in Hungary (Horváth et al., 2010), but most of the studies on the soil dwelling mites concentrated on the natural areas, and the agricultural soils and other habitats are scarcely investigated.Bamboo plantings are common in Hungary in the urban areas, the most widely planted species include Phyllostachys aureosulcata, P. flexuosa and Phyllostachys viridi-glaucescens, but P. aurea, P. vivax f. aureocaulis, P. nigra and some Pleioblastus and Sasa taxa are also regularly offered by retail nurseries. While from specialist nurseries over 50 temperate bamboo taxa are available.In the last years, several papers were presented about the mites collected on Hungarian bamboo plantings. Firstly Ripka (1998Ripka ( , 2006 listed phytoseiid mites found on bamboo plants, some years later Ripka (2011) discovered and described a new genus and a new species of the eriophyid mites from a Phyllostachys species. More recently Kontschán and Neményi (2013) found for the first time East-Asian spider mites on the leaves of Phyllostachys aurea, and one year later Kontschán et al. (2014) listed the first bamboo leaf litter dwelling mites with some leaf inhabiting ones.This new paper contains our new results of the mites which were collected in the leaf litters of five Hungarian bamboo plantings.

Soil mite communities (Acari: Mesostigmata) as indicators of urban ecosystems in Bucharest, Romania

“…Comparing the present research with data obtained from other studies in Europe on the Mesostigmata of urban soils, the number of species identified in Bucharest is comparable with totals obtained in Latvia and Poland, in such different habitats as roadsides, greenery, parks and urban forests (25–51 species), but is higher than that for mite communities in a botanical garden in Hungary (12 species) 40 , 42 , 45 , 47 . However, the number of recorded species is lower than suburban and urban green areas from Poland (62–68 species), urban grasslands from Latvia or cemeteries and botanical garden in Slovakia (123 species, in three years of study) 34 , 35 , 38 , 39 , 43 .…”

Contribution to the Soil-dwelling Mite Fauna of the Hungarian Agroecosystems (Acari)

“…The agricultural soils usually are poor in the organic material; therefore the species number and the frequency of the oribatid species are lower than mesostigmatans. The Rhysotritia ardua species was collected in higher number in the studied agroecosystems, this species usually occurs in other unstable habitats and other plantations (Kontschán et al, 2015) as well.…”

“…Our first steps were the investigation of the Hungarian bamboo plantations in which we found numerous mites species as well (Kontschán et al, 2014(Kontschán et al, , 2015. This study contains our new results of the soil dwelling mites of several different Hungarian agroecosystems.…”

Macrocheles kekensis sp. n., a new macrochelid mite associated with a centoniin beetle from Hungary (Acari, Mesostigmata)

“…However, information about their occurrence in Hungary is insufficient, although numerous records were presented over the past 20 years (e.g. Ács and Kontschán 2014, Kontschán 2005, 2006, 2015, Kontschán et al 2014, 2015a, 2015b, 2016, Salmane and Kontschán 2005, 2006). Only a few beetle-associated macrochelids have been mentioned (Kontschán 2006) from Hungary, while macrochelid mites associated with centoniin beetles are rarely collected.…”