EJBR2020v10i2art141 ISSN 2449-8955 European Journal of Biological Research Research Article European Journal of Biological Research 2020; 10(2): 150-155 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3835917 Leiodinychus orbicularis (C.L. Koch, 1839) in bat boxes in Poland Jerzy Błoszyk 1,2 , Tomasz Rutkowski 2 , Grzegorz Wojtaszyn 3 , Zofia Książkiewicz-Parulska 1 , Michał Zacharyasiewicz 1 , Agnieszka Napierała 1 * 1 Department of General Zoology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, ul. Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 6, 61-614 Poznań, Poland 2 Natural History Collections, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznań, ul. Uniwersytetu Poznańskiego 6, 61-614 Poznań, Poland 3 Polish Society for Nature Conservation "Salamandra", ul. Stolarska 7/3, 60-788 Poznań, Poland *Correspondence: Phone: +48618295847; E-mail: agan@amu.edu.pl Received: 25 March 2020; Revised submission: 27 April 2020; Accepted: 19 May 2020 http://www.journals.tmkarpinski.com/index.php/ejbr Copyright: © The Author(s) 2020. Licensee Joanna Bródka, Poland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) ABSTRACT: The presented studies are the first one on the occurrence of mites in bat boxes and focuses on Uropodina (Acari: Mesostigmata). Investigation was carried out in Western Poland in October 2015. Guano was collected from 58 bat boxes occupied by 10 species of bats. Excrements from particular bat boxes were placed separately in string bags and transported to the laboratory. The extracted fauna was preserved in 75% ethanol and mites were identified with stereoscopic light microscope. The study revealed only one species of Uropodina mite on bat guano in the studied bat boxes, namely Leiodinychus orbicularis (C.L. Koch, 1839). Keywords: Bats; Guano; Leiodinychus orbicularis; Nidicolous species. 1. INTRODUCTION Previous studies shown, that bat guano in caves, constitute a habitat for mites belonging to suborder Uropodina. These mites create communities consisting of species that usually occur in unstable habitats [1]. In European caves, two Uropodina species were recorded on the guano, namely: Phaulodiaspis rackei (Oudemans, 1912) and Phaulodiaspis advena (Trägårdh, 1912) [2-4]. In this study we aimed to check if guano in bat boxes is also inhabited by mites from suborder Uropodina. The investigation presented here is a first on the subject. 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS The guano was collected in October 2015 from 58 bat boxes occupied by 10 species of bats, namely Eptesicus serotinus (Schreber, 1774), Myotis brandtii (Eversmann, 1845), Myotis myotis (Borkhausen, 1797), Myotis mystacinus (Kuhl, 1817), Myotis nattereri (Kuhl, 1817), Nyctalus leisleri (Kuhl, 1817), Nyctalus noctula (Schreber, 1774), Pipistrellus nathusii (Keyserling and Bläsius, 1839), Pipistrellus pygmaeus (Leach, 1825), Plecotus auritus (Linnaeus, 1758) [5-7]. The occurrence of Uropodina mites however, was not considered in relation to particular species of bats, since in a one bat box the guano might have been produced Błoszyk et al. Uropodina in bat boxes 151 European Journal of Biological Research 2020; 10(2): 150-155 by various species of bats (according to the previous studies, the species of bat that produces guano is not significant for the species of mite - the example of Phaulodinychus advena and Australian Uroobovella coprophila [8, 9]. The studied bat boxes were scattered across ca. 20 km² in southern Wielkopolska, Western Poland (near Ostrzeszów 51°25′N 17°55′E; the area covers Kotlina Milicka, Dolina Baryczy Landscape Park and nature protection area Natura 2000 Dolina Baryczy; Figure 1) during an action of banding bats and cleaning out bat boxes. The study area is covered mainly with coniferous forests interspersed with agricultural landscape, and is crossed by numerous roads along which small villages are scattered. Figure 1. The UTM map of Poland showing the distribution of L. orbicularuis (black circles) (Błoszyk, 1983), the study plot - (dashed spot) as well as the area of the occurrence of P. advena (i.e. caves in Ojców and Tatra Mountains [10]). Bat guano from particular bat boxes was placed separately in string bags and transported to the laboratory. The material was weighed on the electronic scale (0.01 g sensitivity) followed by extraction of fauna on Tullgren funnels for 5 days (i.e. until the guano completely dried out). Extracted fauna was preserved in 75% ethanol. Mites were identified with stereoscopic light microscope Olympus SZX 12 with 250–500 magnification. We use the following literature for the species identification: [3, 11-13]. The examined materials, preserved in alcohol have been deposited in the Natural History Collection of Adam Mickiewicz University, Faculty of Biology, Poznań, Poland. 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Amount of bats’ guano was diverse in particular bat boxes and varied between 4 and 1,112 g (average: 117 g). We collected a total of 188 individuals of mites belonging to suborder Uropodina of which 97 were adults (females: 58 individuals; males: 38 individuals) and 91 were juveniles (deutonymphs: 49; Błoszyk et al. Uropodina in bat boxes 152 European Journal of Biological Research 2020; 10(2): 150-155 protonymphs: 41; larva: 1). All individuals belonged to one species, namely Leiodinychus orbicularis (C.L. Koch, 1839). Leiodinychus orbicularis (Figure 2) is known from Europe as well as Algeria and India [3, 11-15]. It is coprophilous and saprophagous, and occurs in various decaying substrates such as compost or manure [3]. This mite is also a frequent inhabitant of nests and nestboxes [3, 16-25] and thus may be considered as nidicolous species [1, 3, 13] (Table 1). Leiodinychus orbicularis rarely occurs also in other type of habitats such as xerophilous grasses, meadows, alder forests, hornbeam forests, mixed deciduous forests, beech-wood on lowland, oak-woods, yew-tree stands, mixed forests (with pine), parks, nest of small mammals, rotten trunks and hollows in trees [16 and unpublished data]. Our study shows that L. orbicularis also occurs in bat boxes and dwells in guano of these mammals. Figure 2. Leiodinychus orbicularis - female, dorsal side (A) and ventral side (B); male - ventral side (C). In this study we did not discover European Uropodina mites that have been already recorded on bats guano in caves, i.e. Phaulodinychus rackei (Oudemans, 1912) and Pahulodinychus advena (Trägårdh, 1912) [2, 9, 10, 26]. The absence of P. advena in bat boxes in Western Poland may results from the geographical range of this species; it occurs in Czech Republic, Slovakia, France, Germany, Austria, Hungary and Romania [3] while in Poland it reaches its northern border of the range and occurs only in southern part of the country [16] (Figure 1). On the other hand, P. rackei previously classified as coprophilous that dwells on bat guano [2], seem to be associated mostly with nests of moles in Central Europe [1, 3, 16]. 4. CONCLUSION In conclusion, L. orbicularis is attracted to the guano of both bats in bat boxes and birds in nestboxes conversely to other species from this group of mites which have different trophic requirements. On the other hand, the species was not recorded in bat guano in caves probably due to its preferences to warmer and drier environments than caves. Presence of only one representative of Uropodina mites on guano in bat boxes may be also related with specific entomofauna inhabiting bat boxes since these mites use phoresy for spreading between the unstable microhabitats and show high selectivity for a species of a carrier [3, 4]. Błoszyk et al. Uropodina in bat boxes 153 European Journal of Biological Research 2020; 10(2): 150-155 Table 1. Habitat preferences of L. orbicularis in Poland: N – number of samples; F – frequency (%); Ns – number of positive samples; X – mean of specimens/per positive sample, Nsp – number of specimens. Habitat N F Ns X±SD Nsp Open habitat Xerophilous grasses 97 1.03 1 8 8 Sandhills 27 - - - - Rocks grasses (noncalcareous) 159 - - - - Rocks grasses on limestone 105 - - - - Meadows 1,192 2.52 30 45.13± 130.64 1,354 Moorlands 18 - - - - Peat-bogs 87 - - - - Sedgelands 415 - - - - Agrocenoses 8 - - - - Schoenoplectus and reed beds 5 - - - - Forest and shrubs Alder forest – soil and litter 212 0.47 1 2 2 Marshy forest – soil and litter 621 - - - - Hornbeam forest – soil and litter 7,100 0.13 9 6.15±13.06 80 Mixed deciduous forest – soil and litter 735 0.14 1 1 1 Beech-wood on lowland – soil and litter 158 0.63 1 1 1 Beech-wood in the mountain – soil and litter 864 - - - - Oak-wood – only soil and litter 75 1.33 1 1 1 Pine forest – only soil and litter 1,508 - - - Spruce forest in the mountain – soil and litter 509 - - - - Spruce forest on lowland – soil and litter 82 - - - - Fir forest – soil and litter 234 - - - - Larch stand – soil and litter 46 - - - - Yew-tree stand – soil and litter 244 0.82 2 4±4.24 8 Fir-beech forest – soil and litter 86 - - - - Mixed forest (with pine) – soil and litter 730 2.60 19 23.31±52.27 433 Mixed forest (with spruce) – soil and litter 105 - - - - Dwarf pine 60 - - - - Brushwood 358 - - - - Parks – soil and litter 410 2.20 9 7.56±8.38 68 Merocenoses Ant-hills 42 - - - - Nest of small mammals 242 0.83 2 3,5±8.38 7 Nest of birds 823 10.94 90 31.54±93.78 2,839 Rot trunks 1,376 0.80 11 2.00±3,54 32 Hollows in tree 244 4.10 10 9.10±13.50 51 Bark of tree 87 - - - - Total 18,160 2.06 187 4,885 Authors’ Contributions: JB: Identification of the species; Conception of the paper and design of the first version of the manuscript; Analysis and interpretation of data. 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