Effects of soil solarization on population of Prostigmatic mites (Acari: Trombidiformes)

Subject Areas : entomology and othea arthropods

S. Javan ¹ , S. E. Hosseini ² , H. Ostovan ³ , M. Farzaneh ⁴ , S. Shabani ⁵

1 - Department of Entomology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran
2 - Department of Animal Biology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran
3 - Department of Entomology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran
4 - Department of Entomology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran
5 - Department of Entomology, Science and Research Branch, Islamic Azad University, Fars, Iran

Received: 2012-02-05 Accepted : 2012-08-21 Published : 2012-08-22

Keywords:

Abstract :

Our research has been done in order to find out the effects of soil solarization on population of prostigmatic mites, in Fars Science and Research, Fars Province, during the years 2010-2011. We prepared a land with the area of 120 m2 in the above location. The block was divided to 3 parts of 5×8 m. The first part was covered by a plastic, the second part was covered by a plastic but the soil was mixed with manure. The third part was used as control. Samples were taken randomly from the depths of 5, 10 and 15 cm every other day. Totally 1215 prostigmatic mites were collected from 108 soil samples. These mites belonged to 6 families of Cunaxidae, Bdellidae, Cheyletidae, Tetranychidae, Stigmaeidae and Tenuipalpidae. In this research Tetranychid mites had the most and Tenuipalpid mites had the least population in different depths of the soil. Our results indicated a significant reduction in Prostigmatic mites population in both plastic covered treatment and plastic covered with manure in compare to control.