First faunistic data on soil mites (Acari, Oribatida, Punctoribatidae, Phenopelopidae) from Acarlar floodplain forest
Authors: Baran Şule , Bilgin Ayşenur 
Published: September 2024

First faunistic data on soil mites (Acari, Oribatida, Punctoribatidae, Phenopelopidae) from Acarlar floodplain forest

Şule BARAN 1, Ayşenur BİLGİN 1
ORCID: 0000-0003-2497-5876; 0000-0002-4577-4355

1 Sakarya University, Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, 54187 Sakarya, Türkiye

Abstract
In this study, soil mites found in the Acarlar floodplain forest, which is the largest floodplain in were investigated faunisticaly for the first time. It is aimed to contribute to the mite fauna of Türkiye by determining the species belonging to the families Punctoribatidae and Phenopelopidae (Acari; Oribatida). Knowledge of the oribatid mite fauna of Türkiye is very limited. The samples are collected in may 2022 Acarlar floodplain forest. Three species belonging to families Punctoribatidae and Phenopelopidae are recorded from Acarlar floodplain forest during this research. The species Punctoribates (Minguezetes) palustris (Banks, 1895) and Peloptulus (Sacculoptulus) sacculiferus (Weigmann, 2008) are firstly recorded from Türkiye. SEM images of the species are presented.

Keywords: Acarlar floodplain forest, First record, Phenopelopidae, Punctoribatidae, Türkiye

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Acarlar subasar ormanından toprak akarları (Acari, Oribatida, Punctoribatidae, Phenopelopidae) hakkında ilk faunistik veriler

Özet
Bu çalışmada Türkiye'nin tek parça halindeki en büyük longoz (subasar) olan Acarlar longoz ormanında bulunan toprak akarları faunustik açıdan ilk kez incelenmiştir. Punctoribatidae ve Phenopelopidae (Acari; Oribatida) familyalarına ait türlerinin belirlenerek Türkiye akar faunasına katkıda bulunmak amaçlanmıştır. Örnekler Acarlar Longoz Ormanı’ndan 2022 mayıs ayında toplanmıştır.Türkiye'nin oribatid akar faunası hakkında bilgi çok sınırlıdır. Bu araştırma sırasında Acarlar longoz ormanından Punctoribatidae ve Phenopelopidae familyalarına ait üç tür kaydedilmiştir. Punctoribates (Minguezetes) palustris (Banks, 1895) ve Peloptulus (Sacculoptulus) sacculiferus (Weigmann, 2008) türleri Türkiye'den ilk kez kaydedilmiştir. Türlerin SEM görüntüleri sunulmuştur.

Anahtar kelimeler: Acarlar Longoz ormanı, yeni kayıt, Phenopelopidae, Punctoribatidae, Türkiye

1.	Inroduction

Microhabitats in forest soils provide fairly stable and suitable conditions for their inhabitants, and therefore the species richness of the soil mesofauna (Mesostigmata, Oribatida, Collembola, Nematoda) in the old forest soils is quite high [1].
The oribatid mites are the most species rich order of Acari. There are 162 families and over 11 thousand species belonging to the Oribatida order, and nearly 4 thousand of these species are distributed in the Pelearctic region.
The family Mycobatidae Grandjean 1954 was consideres as as a junior synonym of Punctoribatidae Thor, 1937 by different authors [2,3]. The family Punctoribatidae has 101 species in 12 genera. The characteristic features of the family Punctoribatidae are presence of movable or semimovable slender pteromorphs, tectum on the anterior margin of notogaster, shiny or variously ornamented notogaster, lamella with cuspides and translamella, 10 pairs of notogastral setae [4-6]
The family Phenopelopidae Petrunkevitch, 1955 has 99 species in 4 genera. The characteristic features of the family are large body size (btw 400-1000 micrometers), notogaster covered in a thick cerotegumental layer, prodorsal lamella flat and blade like, more or less pointed rostrum, movable or semimovable pteromorphs, presence of area porosae and 8-10 pairs of notogastral setae [7,8].