BACKGROUND Mites are one of the most common and widely distributed ectoparasites of small ruminants in Ethiopia, contributing to major hindrances in livestock productivity in the country. Despite of this fact, specific study was not conducted on mites of small ruminants in Ethiopia. Therefore, the present study was performed from October 2009 to May 2010 to determine the prevalence and species ...

House dust mite sensitized asthmatics are advised to practice allergen avoidance. Charcoal pillows are used in Korea with unsubstantiated claims regarding their efficacy in alleviating asthma symptoms. We tested the effects of activated charcoal on breeding of house dust mites in culture. Twenty live adult house dust mites (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus) were inoculated, 10 replicates, on cult...

The karyotypes of water mites (Acari: Hydrachnellae: Hydrodromidae) are largely unknown. The present investigation is the first report of a study designed to characterize the chromosomes of water mites. The study was carried out with specimens of Hydrodroma despiciens collected from Eber Lake in Afyon, Turkey. Several different methods were tried to obtain chromosomes of this species. However, ...

Miniature inverted-repeat transposable elements (MITEs) are ubiquitous in high eukaryotic genomes. More than 178,000 MITE sequences of 338 families are present in the genome of rice (Oryza sativa) cultivar Nipponbare. Interestingly, only two of the 338 MITE families have homologous sequences in the genome of Brachypodium distachyon, a relative in the grass family. Therefore, the vast majority o...

Mites and the mammal pathogenic fungus Histoplasma capsulatum are the major components of bat guano microbiota. Interactions between mites and H. capsulatum were evaluated under laboratory conditions. Acarid mites, mainly Sancassania sp., were the most abundant microarthropod in the sampled guano of the Mexican bat Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana and, based on its morphology, Sancassania sp. was...

Feather mites are a diverse group of ectosymbionts that occur on most species of birds. Although Darwin's finches are a well-studied group of birds, relatively little is known about their feather mites. Nearly 200 birds across 9 finch species, and from 2 locations on Santa Cruz Island, Galápagos, were dust-ruffled during the 2009 breeding season. We found 8 genera of feather mites; the most pre...

Kinship relations within populations of unionicolid water mites are not well known, owing to their complex life cycles and the fact that interactions between active and resting stages for some species are transitory. A number of species of unionicolid water mites are, however, obligate symbionts of freshwater mussels and spend most of their life cycle in association with these hosts. Among thes...

Under field conditions, Varroa jacobsoni were shown to be highly effective vectors of deformed wing virus (DWV) between bees. Adult female mites obtained from honeybee pupae naturally infected with DWV contained virus titers many times in excess of those found in their hosts and, beyond that, which might be expected from a concentration effect. It is therefore possible that DWV may be capable o...

Understanding the impact of a pest species on a particular crop is critical for the success of a pest management program. Field studies were conducted to determine the effect of the twospotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch, on marketable yield of strawberries during the 2008/2009 and 2009/2010 growing seasons. Low, medium, and high mite infestation levels were established by initial ino...

The Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) is a significant marker of honeybee colony collapse disorder (CCD). In the present work, we provide the first evidence that Varroa destructor is IAPV replication-competent and capable of vectoring IAPV in honeybees. The honeybees became infected with IAPV after exposure to Varroa mites that carried the virus. The copy number of IAPV in bees was positivel...