Author : Adrian Amelio Vasquez
Publisher :
Page : 188 pages
File Size : 30,75 MB
Release : 2017
Category : Physiology
ISBN :
Water mites are a diverse group of arachnids that inhabit aquatic habitats and have been studied in the past for their biodiversity, unique lifecycle, bioindicator species use and for their impact as parasites on insects of human pathological significance such as the mosquito. Water mites are critical in their environment as possible apex predators however, their life cycle and morphological complexity has made taxonomy and description of water mites difficult. Although water mite species richness is estimated at over 6000 species described to date, descriptions of extant North American water mite species are estimated to be only 50% of the existing species. Water mite digestive physiology is also virtually unknown even though water mites are known to be efficient predators and parasites of dipteran pest such as chironomids. With the use of microscopic, biochemical and molecular genetic technologies this work aims to improve water mite knowledge in both digestive physiology and diversity of North American water mite populations. Water mites from Blue Heron Lagoon at Belle Isle, Detroit were collected and processed for assessment of both species diversity and gut molecular contents. Using genetic and morphological methods, water mites and their prey were identified. Water mites in different genera are observed to be generalists as we did not see any water mite genera feeding exclusively on only one type of prey. Gut molecular contents were assessed using primers targeting the COI gene that has been used for molecular barcoding. Dipteran "specific" primers (mLep) were used to elucidate what prey were being consumed. These sequences were obtained by Sanger Sequencing and by Next Generation Sequencing. These sequences were compared to a large database of chironomid species that were generated from the same biogeographic region.