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Insects
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Mites: Systematics, Ecology, and Evolution
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Mites: Systematics, Ecology, and Evolution

A special issue of Insects (ISSN 2075-4450).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2023) | Viewed by 4554

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Philipp E. Chetverikov

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Parasitology, Zoological Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Universitetskaya nab. 1, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia
Interests: acarology; mites; systematics; phylogeny
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Mites and ticks are ancient hyperdiverse groups of arachnids that occupy a wide range of terrestrial and aqueous niches. Some of them are dangerous pests that cause serious problems for agriculture, or parasites of human and animals that transmit various pathogens. Although almost 50,000 acariform mites species have been already described, thousands more remain undiscovered in nature or undescribed in the collections of acarologists worldwide. Miniaturization is the main trend that determined the general evolutionary path of various mite clades. It is for this reason that exploring the diversity of mites is painstaking and time-consuming. Extra efforts are required at all steps from collecting material and slide preparation, up to DNA extraction, drawings and measurements. In addition to conventional light microscopy, nowadays, mites are investigated with the aid of various advanced equipment, genetic and statistical techniques, algorithms and software, which allows us to solve the previously encountered problems. This Special Issue presents a series of high-quality papers that cover different areas of acarology, with a special focus on the diversity, ecology and evolution of acariform mites.

Dr. Philipp E. Chetverikov
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Insects is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Acariformes
  • chelicerates
  • arthropod structure
  • agriculture
  • parasite
  • phylogeny

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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17 pages, 4341 KiB  
Article
Integrative Taxonomy of the Gall Mite Nothopoda todeica n. sp. (Eriophyidae) from the Disjunct Afro-Australasian Fern Todea barbara: Morphology, Phylogeny, and Mitogenomics
by Philipp E. Chetverikov, Charnie Craemer, Vladimir D. Gankevich and Anna S. Zhuk
Insects 2023, 14(6), 507; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14060507 - 31 May 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1058
Abstract
Eriophyoidea is a group of phytoparasitic mites with poorly resolved phylogeny. Previous studies inferred Eriophyidae s.l. as the largest molecular clade of Eriophyoidea, and Nothopodinae as the basal divergence of Eriophyidae s.l. We investigate the morphology and molecular phylogeny of Nothopoda todeica  [...] Read more.
Eriophyoidea is a group of phytoparasitic mites with poorly resolved phylogeny. Previous studies inferred Eriophyidae s.l. as the largest molecular clade of Eriophyoidea, and Nothopodinae as the basal divergence of Eriophyidae s.l. We investigate the morphology and molecular phylogeny of Nothopoda todeica n. sp. (Nothopodinae, Nothopodini), associated with a disjunct Afro-Australasian fern Todea barbara (Osmundaceae) from South Africa. Our analyses (1) determine new erroneous sequences (KF782375, KF782475, KF782586) wrongly assigned to Nothopodinae instead of Phyllocoptinae, (2) confirm the basal position of Nothopodinae in Eriophyoidea s.l., (3) question the monophyly of the Colopodacini and Nothopodini tribes, and (4) show the nested position of African fern-associated Nothopoda within a clade dominated by Asian nothopodines from angiosperms, which implies (a) a secondary association of nothopodines with ferns and (b) no relation between geography (continents) and the phylogenetic relationships of Nothopodinae species. Finally, we obtained a first complete mitochondrial genome for Nothopodinae and revealed a new gene order in the mitogenome of N. todeica n. sp., notably deviating from those in other investigated eriophyoids. Our results contribute to resolving the phylogeny of Eriophyoidea and provide an example of an integrative study of a new taxon belonging to an economically important group of acariform mites. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mites: Systematics, Ecology, and Evolution)
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14 pages, 2899 KiB  
Article
Molecular-Based Taxonomic Inferences of Some Spider Mite Species of the Genus Oligonychus Berlese (Acari, Prostigmata, Tetranychidae)
by Hafiz Muhammad Saqib Mushtaq, Amgad A. Saleh, Muhammad Kamran and Fahad Jaber Alatawi
Insects 2023, 14(2), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14020192 - 15 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1419
Abstract
DNA barcoding technology using short DNA sequences has emerged as an efficient and reliable tool for identifying, confirming, and resolving closely related taxa. This study used ITS2-rDNA and mtCOI DNA sequences to confirm the identity of eight Oligonychus species, representing 68 spider mite [...] Read more.
DNA barcoding technology using short DNA sequences has emerged as an efficient and reliable tool for identifying, confirming, and resolving closely related taxa. This study used ITS2-rDNA and mtCOI DNA sequences to confirm the identity of eight Oligonychus species, representing 68 spider mite samples, collected mainly from Saudi Arabia (SA) and some from Mexico, Pakistan, USA, and Yemen. The intraspecific nucleotide divergences of the studied Oligonychus species ranged from 0% to 1.2% for ITS2 and 0% to 2.9% for COI. However, the interspecific nucleotide divergences were distinctly higher than the intraspecific ones and ranged from 3.7% to 51.1% for ITS2 and 3.2% to 18.1% for COI. Furthermore, molecular data correctly confirmed the species identity of 42 Oligonychus samples lacking males, including a previously claimed sample of O. pratensis from SA. High genetic variations were detected in two Oligonychus species: O. afrasiaticus (McGregor) (nine ITS2 and three COI haplotypes) and O. tylus Baker and Pritchard (four ITS2 and two COI haplotypes). In addition, ITS2- and COI-based phylogenetic trees confirmed the subdivision of the genus Oligonychus. In conclusion, integrative taxonomic approaches are vital to resolve the closely related Oligonychus species, identify the samples lacking male specimens, and assess phylogenetic relationships within and among species. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mites: Systematics, Ecology, and Evolution)
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Review

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9 pages, 1410 KiB  
Review
Where Eriophyoidea (Acariformes) Belong in the Tree of Life
by Samuel J. Bolton, Philipp E. Chetverikov, Ronald Ochoa and Pavel B. Klimov
Insects 2023, 14(6), 527; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects14060527 - 06 Jun 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1553
Abstract
Over the past century and a half, the taxonomic placement of Eriophyoidea has been in flux. For much of this period, this group has been treated as a subtaxon within Trombidiformes. However, the vast majority of recent phylogenetic analyses, including almost all phylogenomic [...] Read more.
Over the past century and a half, the taxonomic placement of Eriophyoidea has been in flux. For much of this period, this group has been treated as a subtaxon within Trombidiformes. However, the vast majority of recent phylogenetic analyses, including almost all phylogenomic analyses, place this group outside Trombidiformes. The few studies that still place Eriophyoidea within Trombidiformes are likely to be biased by incomplete taxon/gene sampling, long branch attraction, the omission of RNA secondary structure in sequence alignment, and the inclusion of hypervariable expansion–contraction rRNA regions. Based on the agreement among a number of independent analyses that use a range of different datasets (morphology; multiple genes; mitochondrial/whole genomes), Eriophyoidea are almost certain to be closely related to Nematalycidae, a family of vermiform mites within Endeostigmata, a basal acariform grade. Much of the morphological evidence in support of this relationship was apparent after the discovery of Nematalycidae in the middle of the 20th century. However, this evidence has largely been disregarded until very recently, perhaps because of overconfidence in the placement of Eriophyoidea within Trombidiformes. Here, we briefly review and identify a number of biases, both molecular- and morphology-based, that can lead to erroneous reconstructions of the position of Eriophyoidea in the tree of life. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Mites: Systematics, Ecology, and Evolution)
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