FOUR-LEGGED MITES (ACARI: TETRAPODILI) OF THE GENUS ACERIA FROM PLANTS OF THE FAMILY ASTERACEAE WITH THE DESCRIPTION OF A NEW SPECIES

About author:

S.I. Sukhareva, Biological Research Institute, St.Petersburg State University, Old Peterhof 198904, Russia

Acknowledgments:

I thank Drs. R. Sobhian and O.V. Kovalev for the material and helpful advices.

Annotation:

In total 73 mite species from the genus Aceria living on Asteraceae were described. The greatest majority of them cause damage to plants. The description of a new species, Aceria sobhiani sp.n., is given. For the "Overview" part of the article the list of species, based of their descriptions, was composed.

Further we use the most detailed descriptions taken from the literature for the morphological analysis. All the data were analyzed statistically to receive the information on morphological variabil-ity of species. Fifteen morphological features were studied. The correlative and factor analysis were carried out.

The dispersion of the particular species by factor scores depending on the phylogenetic status of their host plants did not show any clear groups. However, taking into account the representatives of two different subfamilies, Lactucoideae and Aster-oideae, it can be noted that the species from plants of the first subfamily occupy positive areas of the second factor, and those from the plants of Asteroi-deae occupy mainly negative areas of this factor. Besides, the species from the subfamily Lactucoi-dea are positioned less compactly than the species of the subfamily Asteroideae.

It is possible that this situation is caused by the high degree of variability of the host plants them-selves and the rapid tempo of evolution in this group of plants that is accompanied by the emer-gence of new forms.

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