TY  - JOUR
JF  - Acarologia
T1  - Acari infracommunities associated with two species of rodents from the Neotropical region of Mexico
VL  - 66
IS  - Suppl
SP  - 226
EP  - 226
PY  - 2026
SN  - 0044-586X
SN  - 2107-7207
PB  - Les Amis d'Acarologia
AU  - Carmen, Guzmán-Cornejo
AU  - Fernanda, Soto-López
AU  - Sara, Ramírez-Cañas
AU  - Laura, Del Castillo-Martínez
AU  - Luis, García-Prieto
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24349/qajl-fkpn
DO  - 10.24349/qajl-fkpn
DA  - 2026-07-20
ET  - 2026-07-20
KW  - Communities
KW  - Mites
KW  - Tropical forest
KW  - Heteromyidae
KW  - Cricetidae
AB  - Ecological studies on the mite fauna of wild rodents published so far in the Neotropics only include population parameters, so there is no research that addresses the perspective of mite communities associated with this host group. This study aims to analyze the infracommunities (average of the attributes calculated for each individual host in a sample) of two rodent species belonging to the families Cricetidae and Heteromyidae in the Estación de Biología Tropical, Los Tuxtlas, Veracruz, Mexico. Rodents were captured between August and September 2022 using Sherman traps and examined for mite extraction by individual brushing. The mites were preserved in 96% ethanol. Subsequently, they were cleared and mounted on semi-permanent slides with Hoyer’s medium for their taxonomic identification using specialized keys. The captured hosts were the cricetid Casiomys alfaroi (n=11) and the heteromyid Heteromys desmarestianus (n=13). The Bootstrap richness estimator was calculated to determine the representativeness of the sample with respect to the observed richness. The following average attributes were also obtained for each host group: richness, abundance, diversity and evenness (Shannon index), dominance (Berger-Parker index), and infracommunity composition, which was analyzed using Principal Coordinates Analysis (PCoA) The infracommunities of C. alfaroi presented a diversity value of 1.08 and those of H. desmarestianus of 0.97; however, these subtle differences are not statistically significant (p=0.51). This slight variation may be due to the relatively high evenness values and the lower dominance exerted by the species Prolistrophorus sp. (0.06) and Geomylichus oaxacae (0.1), respectively. Similarly, no significant differences were found in richness (p=0.41). The PCoA analysis, consisting of two axes, explains 51.6% of the total variation in ectosymbiont abundances. Interspecific segregation of the abundances of the infracommunities of the two host species was observed, confirmed by a PERMANOVA (p=0.001). At the intraspecific level, there is high variation in the composition of the infracommunities of C. alfaroi, which is explained by the pair of species Gigantolaelaps sp. + Laelaps heteromydis. In the case of H. desmarestianus, the variation in composition is slightly lower and is explained by Steptolaelaps heteromydis.
ER -