Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
on vertebrates (including man) during the immature stages; some transmit various
pathogens and are thus of public health importance.
A number of species, however, have mixed feeding habits some, as in the Astigmata,
are panphytophagous (both micro- and macrophytophages), others (
e.g.,
some Prostigmata
seem to be able to feed on plant roots and certain species of this order are parasitic on
the leaves of higher plants) are microphytophagous and predatory. Anderson (1975)
found that a simple trophic classification of mites was inadequate because of marked sea-
sonal changes in the feeding habits. Nonetheless, gut content analysis of Cryptostigmata
carried out over a twenty-month period showed a relationship between size and feeding
regime (Anderson, 1977). The largest species,
Phthiracarus
sp. and
Steganacarus magnus
which, respectively, measured 0.8 and 1.0 mm, tended to feed mainly on leaf litter. As
body size decreases, the proportion of fungal material ingested increases,
Eniochthonius
minutissimus
(0.55 mm), for example, has a purely mycophagous regime. The smallest
species tend to ingest large amounts of amorphous material;
Oppia
sp., the smallest one
(0.25 mm), ingests small amounts of fungal and no higher plant material (Figure III.35).
