New molecular barcodes of water mites (Trombidiformes: Hydrachnidiae) from the Toledo Harbor region of Western Lake Erie, USA, with first barcodes for Krendowskia (Krendowskiidae) and Koenikea (Unionicolidae)

ABSTRACT

Water mites are a highly diverse group of arachnids that are morphologically difficult to analyse and for which many species have yet to be described. Furthermore, the representation of Great Lakes water mites in cytochrome oxidase 1 gene (COI) DNA barcode databases has been reported to be practically nil. To help remedy this gap in taxonomic knowledge, water mites collected in 2012–2013 in benthic samples from the Toledo Harbor region (Maumee River and Maumee Bay) of Western Lake Erie were identified to genus, their COI barcodes amplified and sequenced, and their relationships in a neighbour-joining tree determined. Limnesia yielded a clade with multiple branches, part within 1% of previous GenBank sequences and others less than 95% similar. Barcodes of Krendowskia and Koenikea are the first for these genera in GenBank. This analysis contributes new molecular barcodes for water mites in the Laurentian Great Lakes including the first publicly available barcodes for two genera.

KEYWORDS:

• Trombidiformes
• Prostigmata
• Hydrachnidia
• Hydrachnidiae
• DNA sequence
• cytochrome oxidase I barcode

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Ashley Dowling (University of Arkansas) for helpful guidance in identification and photography of water mite specimens and in sharing perspectives on how the mites in this study may relate to other water mite taxa. We thank the University of Arkansas for archiving the two Krendowskia specimens.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

Collection and molecular analysis of water mites from Toledo Harbor was funded by an EPA GLRI grant #GL00E00808-0 (2011–2014). AAV is a trainee on NIH training grant NIGMS R25GM058905.