Soil Inhabiting Mite Diversity (Acari) of Mango Orchards from Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan
Soil Inhabiting Mite Diversity (Acari) of Mango Orchards from Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan
Bilal Saeed Khan1*, Muhammad Arslan1, Abdul Ghaffar2, Muhammad Farooq2, Saghir Ahmad3, Sami Ullah4 and Awais Rasool5
ABSTRACT
Soil mites are considered as edaphic living organisms because these are responsible in maintaining the soil fertility through their decomposition and nutrient renewal activities. perimental statistics was applied to estimate the variety of soil mite diversity, seasonal variation and influence of intercropping within mango orchards through diversity index. A total of 1898 soil inhabiting mite sample slides were prepared from soil collected samples and after microscopic observation of slide specimen, 08 different families were recognized as Laelapidae, Pachylaelapidae, Ameroseiidae, Macrochelidae, Parasitidae, Phytoseiidae, Uropodidae, and Bdellidae. Macrochelidae and Parasitidae were the most prevalent familities while Pachylaelapidae and Bdellidae were recorded in the lowest numbers. The abundance of soil-inhabiting mites with respect to different locations in various months revealed that maximum abundance of mite families were recorded from Kotla Gurmani (38.5) followed by Kot Chutta (37.0) during October and minimum abundance was recorded during September from Mana Ahmadani (14.8). The maximum richness was recorded from mango orchards during September from Basti Hala (S=6.58) whereas richness remained statistically at par during October and February. The pearson correlation analysis demonstrated that most mite families had a negative correlation with morning and evening relative humidity while the positive correlation with maximum and minimum temperature. The results showed higher Shannon diversity index was observed in Mana Ahmadani during October and February (2.04 and 2.03, respectively) whereas the least value was observed in Basti Halla during February (1.60). Finally it could be concluded that farmers should consider conservation activities of mite fauna through intercropping to enhance the soil fertility thereby fruit production.
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