Ecologic study of soil oribatid mite, Scheloribates rectus (Acari) in high altitude Botanical Garden of Darjeeling Himal
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Ecologic study of soil oribatid mite, Scheloribates rectus (Acari) in high altitude Botanical Garden of Darjeeling Himalayas, India Tapas Chandra Ghosh 1 Received: 23 December 2018 / Accepted: 1 November 2019 # Institute of Zoology, Slovak Academy of Sciences 2019
Abstract The results of some aspects of the ecology of Scheloribates rectus Hammer, 1958 in the soils of a high altitude Botanical Garden in Darjeeling Himalayas, India are presented. Soil samples were collected from two plots (‘X’ and ‘Y’) at monthly intervals for a period of three successive years (January 1999 to December 2001). Attempts have been made to determine the extent to which habitat complexity and local microclimatic variables influenced the population size of this mite. The total population of S. rectus exhibited an irregular trend of fluctuation during the period of investigation with a maximum in winter and minimum in monsoon months. There was a considerable post monsoon / winter increase in population size. Among the four edaphic variables (temperature, moisture, pH and organic matter), only the organic matter content exhibited a positive and significant correlation with the mite population, while the temperature, moisture and pH showed a significant but negative correlation. It was appealing to note that the studied plots being close to each other were more or less similar in edaphic and climatic conditions with a little variation in altitude and vegetation cover. However, the number of mite specimens varied from one plot to another. The reasons of seasonal abundance and numerical variation in the plots are discussed. Keywords Darjeeling Himalayas . Altitude . Behaviour . Oribatid mite . Edaphic variable
Introduction Many outstanding researchers have made substantial contribution on various avenues of the ecology of oribatid mites at high altitudes (Hammer 1958; Schneider et al. 2004; Jing et al. 2005; Hasegawa et al. 2006; Fischer et al. 2010; Fischer and Schatz 2013; Mori et al. 2013; Mumladze et al. 2015). However, the studies carried out on the ecology of soil oribatid mites in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan West Bengal are neither comprehensive enough nor exhaustive. The published works on taxonomy and ecology of mite communities in the Himalayan (Choudhuri and Pande 1979, 1982; Chakraborti and Mondal 1981; Mondal and Kundu 1985, 1986, 1988; Ghosh and Roy 2004; Ghosh et al. 2006; Ghosh and Mandal 2017) and sub Himalayan West Bengal (Sanyal 1981; Sanyal and Bhaduri 1982; Sanyal et al. 1999) are summarised in works of many Indian researchers. Their observations in most * Tapas Chandra Ghosh [email protected] 1
Department of Zoology, Dasaratha Deb Memorial College, Tripura University, Khowai 799201, India
instances were restricted to Darjeeling hills, which often presented a picture of soil arthropod community with special reference to oribatid mites and none of them have made any observation on the ecology of a particular species. Earlier observations of the Indian workers revealed that Scheloribates is one of
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