Mites on Curatella americana L. (Dilleniaceae) from Cerrado vegetation remnants in mining site vicinities

ABSTRACT

Land use for agricultural and mining activities has increased dramatically in the Cerrado biome, resulting in degradation of natural areas and loss of biodiversity. Among all organisms threatened by these activities, plant-inhabiting mites represent a rather neglected group since fewer studies were conducted with these arthropods in natural vegetation compared to agricultural systems. This situation justifies more efforts to characterize plant mites associated with native flowering plants of the Cerrado. Here we studied plant mite assemblages of the common tree Curatella americana L. (Dilleniaceae) in the Cerrado remnants situated in the vicinities of nickel mining sites in the Brazilian state of Goiás. We sampled 33 sites with remnants of natural vegetation belonging to three phytophysiognomies: forest (11 sites), savannah (21 sites) and grassland (1 site). At each site, three to six individual trees were sampled, totalling 132 plants, which harboured 1493 mites belonging to 23 species in 12 families. The most abundant phytophagous and predatory species were Brevipalpus sp. and Pronematus sp., respectively. Mycophagous species and those with unknown feeding habits represented a very small portion of our samples. The Phytoseiidae was the most diverse family with nine species, which suggests the importance of the Cerrado fragments as reservoirs for this family. According to our species accumulation (Mao Tau) and estimated richness (Jackknife 1) curves, more mite species should be present and thus could be collected through an increased sampling effort at the forest and savannah sites. On the other hand, both accumulation and estimated richness curves tended towards an asymptote for the grassland area. Although the studied Cerrado remnants are exposed to nickel mining activity impacts, C. americana still presented a significant species richness of mites, including predatory species with potential benefit to agriculture.

KEYWORDS:

• Acari
• Brazilian savannah
• checklist
• estimated richness
• phytophysiognomy

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Luciano Mateus Passos and Cellini Castro de Oliveira for their help in the field and Edgar Luiz de Lima (Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil) for his assistance in the preparation of the map used in Figure 1. To Anglo American Brazil – FUNAPE agreement for financially supporting our field sampling performed in this work and for providing scholarship for RNR. JVT was financially supported by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) in the form of a scientific initiation scholarship. We also thank Arthur Anker (Universidade Federal de Goiás, Brazil) for critically reviewing the manuscript.

Additional information

Funding

The authors thank the Anglo American Brazil – FUNAPE agreement for financially supporting our field sampling performed in this work and for providing scholarship for RNR. JVT was financially supported by CNPq (Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico) in the form of a scientific initiation scholarship.