Survey of Mite Species Inhabiting Animal Production Farm at Sohag Governorate, with Checklist of Mites Existing Manure and Dung Hills in Egypt Volume 3 - Issue 4

Desoky ASSa¹*, Ahameda HEM² and Erakyb SA²

• ¹Department of Plant Protection, Sohag University, Egypt
• ²Department of Plant Protection, Assiut University, Egypt

Received: April 24, 2020;   Published:June 02, 2020

Corresponding author: Desoky ASSa, Department of Plant Protection, Sohag University, Egypt

DOI: 10.32474/DDIPIJ.2020.03.000169

Abstract PDF

The present study was carried out in the newly established animal production farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University, in order to survey the mite species inhabiting manure and dung hills. The study showed the occurrence of six species of mites (i.e., Macrocheles solimani Hafez, El-Badry & Nasr, 1985; Macrocheles merdarius (Berlese, 1889); Uropodiaspis aegyptiacusAhmed, 1984; Siteroptes manure Soliman & Kandeel, 1986; Histiostoma arcuatus Negm, 2007 and Hormosianoetus mahunkai Eraky & Shoker, 1993. The checklist reported 120 mite species pertaining to 18 families and 53 genera. Interestingly, the largest diversities of mite species were recorded to the Mesostigmata (50 species) and the Acaridida (45 species). Therefore, it is clear that, there are large numbers of mite pests (Acaridida species) inhabiting manure in Egypt, that may be transferred to agricultural crops when manure used in cultivation. On the other side, the diversity of the predatory mite species should be taken into consideration to establish control programs by using these species as a biological control agent to control the pest ones [1-15].

Keywords: Mites; Sohag; Egypt; Manure; Dung hills; Survey

The Acarididia Latreille, 1802is a diverse group of mites specialized for exploiting spatially or temporarily restricted habitats. The modified deutonymph (hypopus) in this group is specialized for dispersal and resisting adverse environmental conditions (OC'onnor, 1982) [16-25]. Dispersal between habitat patches is affected by phoretic association between the specialized deutonymphs of the Acaridida mites and the host, which may be either another arthropod or a vertebrate (Hughes, 1976; OC'onnor, 1991; Houck and OC'onnor, 1991). Most species are living as saprophytic and fungivores in soil, litter, debris and organic manure, while others can be found on different economic plants, causing injury to plant directly by feeding, or by transmitting various disease agents (Zakhvatkin, 1941; Baker and Wharton, 1952; Scheucher, 1957; Hughes and Jackson, 1958; Hughes, 1961; Griffiths, 1977; OC'onnor, 1994; Kettle, 1995). On the other side, The Acaridida mites are a very important food source for many Mesostigmata species, as the latter reduce the number of the former in different environments (on manure or plants).

Knowledge concerning the Acaridides fauna in Egypt is extremely poor as compared with the other groups of mites, such as: Mesostigmata and Prostigmata. Many points concerning to this group are questionable. However, several taxa were found to be new and several morphological characteristics were described. Many species and few genera affiliated to the Acaridida mites were recorded in Upper Egypt by: Eraky (1993; 1994a,b; 1997; 1998; 1999a,b,c; 2000a,b); Eraky and Shoker (1993a,b; 1994); Abu El-Maged (1998); Negm (2007); Eraky and Osman (2008a,b); Eraky (2010); Abdelgayed et al. (2017); Eraky et al. (2017) [26-32].

The work herein concerned with the species composition of mite species inhabiting manure and dung hills in the newly established animal production farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University. An annotated list of mite species surveyed from animal farms in Egyptian Governorates was provided for both the present work and previous studies of certain authors. [33-45]. Such information is needed to support future ecological works of mite fauna inhabiting animal farms.

Samples (10 replicates) were taken fortnightly from manure and dung hills of the experimental animal production farm, Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University, during two years started from march, 2018. Each sample (500g) was preserved in plastic bags labeled with necessary information, then transferred to the laboratory for extraction by using the modified Berlese’s extractor apparatus. From the extracted arthropod fauna, mites were isolated in small vials, then cleared up in lactic acid (4 days) and mounted in Hayerʼs medium. The mounted slides were placed in an oven at 45-50 °C (7 days) till dryness. The identification of mite species was done using illustrated keys established by: Scheucher (1957); O’Connor (1982); Zaher (1984a,b; 1986); Evans (1992); O’Connor (2001); Eraky and Osman (2008a); Eraky (2010).

The mite fauna inhabiting animal farms in Egypt, currently include 120 species pertaining to 18 families and 53 genera of different mite groups. Most of the surveyed species were reported from the husbandry farms of animals by: Shoker and Eraky (1994); Abu El-Maged (1998); Negm (2007) (Assiut Governorate) and Abdel-Aziz (1999) (Sohag Governorate). The present study recorded only six species. Of these, two histostomatid (Histiostoma arcuatus Negm, 2007, Hormosianoetus mahunkai Eraky & Shoker, 1993); single siteroptid species (Siteroptes manure Soliman & Kandeel, 1986); two macrochelid species (Macrocheles solimani Hafez, El-Badry & Nasr, 1985; Macrocheles merdarius (Berlese, 1889) and one uropodid species (Uropodiaspis aegyptiacus Ahmed, 1984), from manure and dung hills of the experimental production farm of the Faculty of Agriculture, Sohag University. On the contrary, Abdel-Aziz (1999), recorded 35 species of mites (Tarsonemina, 3 species; Oribatei, 2 species; Acarididia, 16 species and Mesostigmata, 14 species), from three husbandries of animals at Sohag Governorate. WhileShoker and Eraky (1994), surveyed 28 species of the Mesostigmata belonging to 9 families and 18 genera extracted from animal farms, also Negm (2007) recorded 47 species of different groups of mites at Assiut Governorate (Table 1). This difference between the scarce number of mite species collected in the current study and the number of mite species recorded from other farms, may be due to the fact that, the farms of high numbers of mite species were established from more than 35 years ago and that made the species stable, in comparison to the farm of the present study, which did not exceed five years of construction. Through the present study, attention is required to reduce the number of mite pests, which may be transmitted to agricultural crops. Also, attention must be taken into consideration to the predatory mites, to study their efficiencies in reducing the numbers of the phytophagous ones on different crops [46,47].

Table 1.

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