Species richness of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) in rangelands of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran

Hashemi Khabir, Zahra; Haddad Irani Nejad, Karim; Moghaddam, Mohammad; Khanjani, Mohammad; Zargaran, Mohammad Reza

doi:10.22073/pja.v3i4.10179

Species richness of oribatid mites (Acari: Oribatida) in rangelands of West Azerbaijan Province, Iran

Authors

Zahra Hashemi Khabir ¹

Karim Haddad Irani Nejad ¹

Mohammad Moghaddam ²

Mohammad Khanjani ³

Mohammad Reza Zargaran ⁴

¹ Department of Plant Protection,Faculty of Agriculture,University of Tabriz, Tabriz, Iran;

² Department of Plant Breeding and Biotechnolog, Faculty of Agriculture,University of Tabriz,Tabriz, Iran;

³ Department of Plant Protection,Faculty of Agriculture,Bu-Ali SinaUniversity,Hamadan, Iran;

⁴ Department of Forestry, Faculty of Natural Resources, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran;

10.22073/pja.v3i4.10179

Abstract

In order to study the species richness of oribatid mites in rangelands of West Azerbaijan Province (Northwestern Iran), soil samples were taken in eight different sites of rangelands including Ghooshchi (1600–1750 and 1750–2000 m a.s.l), Ghasemloo (1300–1450, 1450–1600 and 1600–1750 m a.s.l) Roze-Chai (1450–1600 m a.s.l), Marmisho (1750–2000 m a.s.l) and Ordooshahi (1300–1450 m a.s.l) areas at three different times (mid-May, mid-August and mid-October) of the year 2012. In total, 71 species belonging to 49 genera, 32 families and 20 superfamilies were collected and identified. The oribatid species richness was calculated for all the samples with the Ecological Methodology 6.0 software. One-way ANOVA revealed significant differences (P< 0.01) in oribatid species richness among sites (P< 0.01). Ghasemloo 2 (44 species) had the highest species and Ordooshahi (14 species), Ghooshchi 1 (19 species) and Roze-Chai (24 species) had the lowest species richness, respectively. Also, there were significant differences (P< 0.01) in species richness at different altitudes. In this regard, Ghooshchi 2 and Marmisho (1750−2000 m a.s.l) had the highest species richness among the studied areas.

Keywords

Altitude

rarefaction

richness

soil mites

diversity