Limnozetidae
The family Limnozetidae occurs worldwide, except in Australia. It includes three genera, but in Norway only genus Limnozetes occurs. All Limnozetes species are restricted to peatlands, and are parthenogenetic, that is, only females are present, and they are produced from unfertilized eggs.
- Innhold
- Characteristics
- Habitat and ecology
Worldwide the family Limnozetidae includes three genera and 19 species (Subías 2023), but in the Holarctic, only Limnozetes Hull, 1916 occurs. In Norway, six Limnozetes species have been reported, as of 2023.
Characteristics
The adults are small (260–380 µm long) and brown. The prodorsum has well developed lamellae and tutoria. The notogaster is with or without pteromorphs, that is, wing-like structures, and has 10 pairs of notogastral setae. Limnozetidae lack lenticults in front of the notogaster and porose areas on the notogaster (Norton and Behan-Pelletier 2009).
Habitat and ecology
Most Limnozetidae (genera Limnozetes and Limnozetella Willmann, 1932) are truly aquatic, which means that they reproduce in water, and all stages of their life cycle live in water or at its margins (Schatz and Behan-Pelletier 2008). Only Antarcticola Wallwork, 1967, represented by an endemic species in Antarctic, was found in terrestrial microhabitats, in mosses, rock crevices, wood, and nests of sea birds (Wallwork 1972). All Limnozetes species are restricted to peatlands, and are parthenogenetic, that is, only females are present, and they are produced from unfertilized eggs (Seniczak 2011).
References
Norton RA and Behan-Pelletier VM (2009). Suborder Oribatida. In: GW Krantz and DE Walter (eds.). A manual of Acarology, 3rd ed. Texas Tech. University Press Lubbock, 430–564.
Schatz H and Behan-Pelletier V (2007). Global diversity of oribatids (Oribatida: Acari: Arachnida). In: EV Balian, C Lévêque, H Segers, and K Martens (eds). Freshwater Animal Diversity Assessment. Developments in Hydrobiology, vol 198. Springer, Dordrecht. doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-8259-7_35
Seniczak A (2011). Mites (Acari) of the Shores of Forest Lakes and Ponds in Northern Poland, With Species Analysis of Oribatida. Wydawnictwa UTP, Bydgoszcz (2011), 231 pp.
Subías LS (2023). Listado sistemático, sinonímico y biogeográfico de los Ácaros Oribátidos (Acariformes, Oribatida) del mundo (1758−2002). Graellsia 2004, 60 (número extraordinario), 3−305. Updated 2023 – 18 actualization, 540 pp., access December, 2023.
Wallwork JA (1972). Distribution patterns of cryptostigmatid mites (Arachnida: Acari) in South Georgia. Pacific Insects 14, 615–625.