TY  - JOUR
JF  - Acarologia
T1  - Oribatid mites from peatlands in the United States
VL  - 66
IS  - Suppl
SP  - 115
EP  - 115
PY  - 2026
SN  - 0044-586X
SN  - 2107-7207
PB  - Les Amis d'Acarologia
AU  - Carlos, Barreto
AU  - Zoë, Lindo
AU  - Carlos, Barreto
AU  - Zoë, Lindo
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24349/h8ms-3xlp
DO  - 10.24349/h8ms-3xlp
DA  - 2026-07-20
ET  - 2026-07-20
KW  - Sphagnum
KW  - Fen
KW  - Soil
KW  - Wetland
KW  - SPRUCE experiment
AB  - Peatlands are important ecosystems for carbon storage worldwide and often contain unique species. Oribatid mites are the dominant soil arthropods in terrestrial systems like peatlands, where they show high diversity, yet are under-sampled. No checklist of oribatid mites from American peatlands is currently available, and most of the faunistic and community-level data come from the eastern U.S. As a step forward, we aimed to (1) expand the oribatid mite list from a bog in Minnesota using additional peat-soil samples that were collected over five years, and (2) create a checklist of oribatid mites of peatlands in the U.S. We collected a total of 53 peat-soil samples between 2015 and 2020 from the S1 Bog located at the Marcell Experimental Forest in Minnesota, U.S. To create a checklist of species, we used the species from this site, specimens housed in the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Arachnids and Nematodes sampled from peatland sites in the U.S., and published work. At the S1 bog we collected 31,934 adult oribatid mites distributed in 27 families, 43 genera and 49 species; species richness estimates range between 56–102 species. We compiled a final checklist with data from previous studies of American peatlands available online up until July 2024 that revealed an additional 107 species for a total of 156 species distributed in 83 genera and 27 families known from peatlands in the U.S. From our samples, Punctoribates palustris is present in most states (N=6), and is known to be associated with Sphagnum mosses in North America. Other common peatland species such as Eniochthonius mahunkai, Mainothrus badiusand Limnozetes lustrum were also abundant at our site. However, we also found species typical of drier environments (e.g., dry forests, dry montane regions, canopy habitats) such as Eueremaeus nr. proximus, Scapheremaeus palustris, and Cepheus corae. Thus, our results reinforce the idea that peatlands may have a specific subset of species that are common to these ecosystems, but that in general many different species can be occasionally found in peatlands.
ER -