Track the snack – olfactory cues shape foraging behaviour of decomposing soil mites (Oribatida)

Chemical communication in springtails: a review of facts and perspectives

“…These molecules have also to induce a decrease in motility and a clustering of individuals in the course of time. As an example, fatty acids extracted from the body of Folsomia candida and attracting F. candida (Liu and Wu 2017) are known to attract also other microarthropods towards food sources such as bacteria (Brückner et al 2018). Thus, all attractive molecules are not necessarily pheromone components.…”

“…Chemical signals, based on volatile (olfactory) or contact molecules (O'Connell 1986), are known to play a prominent role in positive as well as negative interactions between soil organisms (Wenke et al 2010;Lavelle et al 2016). In soil invertebrates, they play a direct role in mating (Zizzari et al 2017), search for food (Brückner et al 2018), search of safe sites for growth and reproduction (Kuenen and Nooteboom 1963), aggregation (Benoit et al 2009), avoidance of death risk (Nilsson and Bengtsson 2004a), prey location and catching (Huber 1978) and deterrence of predators (Smolanoff et al 1975). Some chemical compounds excreted by soil animals have hormonal properties which stimulate the growth of plants and their resistance against stress factors and pathogens (Puga-Freitas and Blouin 2015).…”

Molecular evolutionary trends and biosynthesis pathways in the Oribatida revealed by the genome ofArchegozetes longisetosus

“…Solenidia have transverse rows of small pores visible under a light microscope and likely function in olfaction, while the eupathidia have one or several terminal pores and likely are used as contact/gustatory sensilla (Figure 6a) (156, 164). Previous work demonstrated that oribatid mites indeed use olfactory signals in the context of chemical communication and food selection (47-49, 58, 64, 86).…”

“…Generally, it is unclear if GRs in Archegozetes and other mites have similar functions as in insects, but the GR gene family is heavily expanded in many acariform mites and also is present in ticks (Table 2), suggesting an important biological role (12,13,15,17,101,177). This is supported by experimental evidence which suggested that ticks and other mites, including Archegozetes, use chemical cues to find their host, communicate or discriminate food (12,49,58,64,101,(184)(185)(186).…”

“…However, the main sensory modality soil mites use is chemical communication via olfaction (10,49,58,64,156,164,173). In contrast to insects, but similar to crustaceans and Myriapoda, mites do not have the full repertoire of chemosensory classes, they are missing odorant receptors and odorant-binding proteins ( Table 2) (13,15,17,30,31,(174)(175)(176).…”