Occurrence of Fungivorous Mites in Different Habitats at Dakahlia Governorate

Citation: Egypt. Acad. J. Biolog. Sci. (A. Entomology) Vol. 10(5)pp: 5358(2017) Egyptian Academic Journal of Biological Sciences is the official English language journal of the Egyptian Society for Biological Sciences, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Sciences Ain Shams University. Entomology Journal publishes original research papers and reviews from any entomological discipline or from directly allied fields in ecology, behavioral biology, physiology, biochemistry, development, genetics, systematics, morphology, evolution, control of insects, arachnids, and general entomology. www.eajbs.eg.net Provided for non-commercial research and education use. Not for reproduction, distribution or commercial use.


INTRODUCTION
Up-to-date dramatically increase in the population in the world requires an efficient modern human food and animal production industry and the manufacture of good quality feeds and food.A 'pest of stored products' can refer to any organism that infests and damages stored food, books and documents, fabrics, leather, carpets, and any other dried or preserved item that is not used shortly after it is delivered to a location, or moved regularly.Technically, these pests can include microorganisms such as fungi and arthropods such as insects and mites.Damage by insects, mites, fungi, and sprouting causes hundreds of millions of dollars of economic losses to grain producers, merchandisers, and processors each year (Harein and Meronuck 1995).Stored product mites are important pests of stored food commodities and animal feed in areas with humid climates (Sanchez-Ramos and Castanera, 2003).These pests negatively influence the quality of stored commodities, cause allergic reaction and disseminate toxic moulds (Hubert et al., 2004).
The pest importance of stored product mites has been reviewed and three pest risks are suggested; (i) direct consumption on human food, animal feed or other products changing the quality of infested products, they can penetrate grains and feed directly on the grain kernels, therefore they destroy their germination power, change the moisture contents of medius, initiating growth and spread mould ( Sinha and Wallace, 1977;Taha, 1985); Gulati and Mathur, 1995); (ii) interaction to microorganisms leading to the transfer of mycotoxins production fungi (Sinha, 1964) or pathogenic bacteria; (iii) production of hazardous compounds among them the allergens are of the highest importance.Mites associated with different materials (plants, stored products, soil) have different relationships, ranging from fungivorous, parasitic and predators associated with other microorganisms.According to the available literature numerous surveys of the plant leaves, stored products and soil fungivorous mites associated with different materials have been undertaken in various parts of the world, but only limited studies were carried out in Egypt.Therefore, the present study was conducted to detect the fungivorous mites of some stored materials, plant leaves and soil of some field crops in different regions of El-Dakahlia Governorate, Egypt during the period 2013-2016.

B. Collection of different fungivorous mites Collection of fungivorous mites on different plant leaves:
The examined plants to study the occurrence of different fungivorous mites were soybean, maize, cotton, clover, wheat, and sugar beat.The samples (20 leaves) were randomly picked up twice monthly and transferred to identify mites.Collection of fungivorous mites from stored products: Samples were collected from different localities from the tested materials of about 500 gm as placed in plastic bags marked by labels denoting date of collection, place, and habitat.The examined stored materials were seeds (cotton, wheat, maize, lentil, barley, cow pea, rice) grains, animal feed (wheat bran, wheat and clover straw), dry fruits (fig, date palm) and others (cheese, biscuit, maize flour, milk powder, karkadia, macaroni, boksomate, chocolate, bread, and sugar).The samples were brought to Acarology Research Laboratory in Cotton and Field Crops Acarology Department, Plant Prot.Res.Inst., Agricultural Research Center, for examination in the same collection day.Collection of fungivorous mites from field crops soils:Samples of 500 g soil under some field cops (wheat, cotton, soybean, maize, sugar beet and clover) were randomly taken from a layer of 5 cm of upper soils, placed in paper bags and transferred in same collection day to be identified and recorded.C. Isolation of mites: Mites extraction was carried out using modified Tullgren funnels.Each funnel has 60-Watt electric lamb.Samples of tested stored products and soil exposed to light for 24 hours, and the extracted mites were received in Petridishes (diameter 9 cm, high 1.5 cm) filled with water.The plant leaves mites were examined and isolated by aiding of a Stereomicroscope.D. Mounting of mites: Collected mites were kept in Nesbitt's solution for about 24 hours for clearing them.Nesbitt's solution is prepared as (chloral hydrate (40 gm) distilled water (25 ml), and hydrochloric acid (2, 5).For mounting the collected mites, Hoyer's medium was used, which was prepared as follow: Distilled water (50 ml), chloral hydrate (50 gm), glycerin (20 ml) and Arabic gum (30 gm) due to Hughes (1976), and Krantz and Walter (2009), drop of Hoyer's medium was put on the widely slide glass, after that the individual of mite (adult stage or immature) mounted in the medium and covered with glass cover, the slide was gently heated to stretch mite individual and rendering it clear and transparent, and to remove any air bubbles under the cover.After a few days the mounted specimens become clear and ready for further studies.E. Identification of the collected mites: The identification of different species was conducted according to Hughes (1961Hughes ( & 1976)); Lindquist and Evans (1965); Shereef et al. (1980); Zaher (1986); Fan and Zhang (2003); Krantz and Walter (2009).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The present study was conducted during four years (2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016) to throw some light on the acarofauna of the different stored products, plant leaves and some field crops soils in different regions covered El-Dakahlia Governorate.This study revealed the occurrence of 36 different mite species belonging to 23 genera and 14 families under four suborders, (  The most abundant family was Acaridae.Also, Suborder Prostigmata was represented in this study by 7 mite species belong to 4 genera in 4 families.The families were Tydeidae (2 species), Tarsonemidae (2 species), Eupodidae (2 species) and Scutacaridae (one species).On the other hand, the mesostigmatid mites were represented by 10 mite species and 5 genera in 3 families and the most abundant family was Ascidae (5 species), while Ameroseiidae included (3 species) and Uropodidae with (2 species); the dominant mesostigmatid species were Proctolaelaps pygmaeus, P. striatus, Kleemenia plumosus and Urobovella krantzi.
The cryptostigmatids in this study included three mite species belong to two families, i.e.Oribatulidae and Oppiidae and the dominant species was Oppia sticta.As shown in Table (2), the stored product materials were the most sources of mite abundance in the current study (33 different species and the commonest mites were T. putrescentiae, Tarsonemus graneries, Proctolaelaps pygmaeus and Acarus siro).On the other hand, these plant leaves were infested with 3 mites species and associated mites were Orthotydeus californicus and T. putrescentiae, but the different tested field cops soil contained 4 soil fungivorous mites and Oppiia sticta was the only dominant collected mite.The data represented in Table (3) showed the number of collected mites associated with different stored habitats in different regions of El-Dakahlia Governorate and also the dominant mite species in different regions.The regions can be descending arranged as follows: Belkas (14 species), Meit Ghamr (11 species), Talkha (10 species), Aga and Sherbein (9 species), El-Mansoura (8 species), Meneit El-Nasr and Dekirnes (7 species), El-Sinbilawein (6 species) and El-Manzala (5 species).The dominant species of different tested regions in this study was the acarid mite, T. putrescentiae.
Similar results were obtained by Mostafa et al. (2006) where they recorded 93 species of mites belonging to 53 genera, 26 families and 4 suborders association with stored products at 16 Egyptian governorates.The suborder Acaridida (Astigmata) (fungivorous mites) was represented by families Acaridae, Chortoglyphidae, Glycyphagidae, Pyroglyphidae and Suidasidae.The data obtained by Habashy (2010) proved the occurrence of 27 different fungivorous mite species inhabiting some stored products where the mesostigmatids were Ameroseiidae, Ascidae and Uropodidae.An intensive survey carried out by Abdel Khalik (2013) to the mites associated with different stored products at different areas in El-Menofia Governorate proved the occurrence of 82 mite species belonging to 54 genera under 30 families belonging to 4 suborders Astigmata, Prostigmata, Mesostigmata and Cryptostigmata.Data revealed the occurrence of 28 different acaridid fungivorous mite species in 17 genera and 7 families.The families were Acaridae, Suidasidae, Glycyphagidae, Histiomidae, Pyroglyphidae, Carpoglyphidae and Chortoglyphidae.

Table 1 :
Incidence of different mites associated with different habitats at different regions of El-Dakahlia Governorate during 2013-2016.

Table 2 :
List of dominant mites associated with different habitats of El-Dakahlia Governorate during 2013-2016 seasons.