Mite Diversity (Acari) from Ornamental Plants in Erzurum in Turkey

Mite species belongs to Tetraychychidae (3); Tenupalpidae (2), Stigmaeidae (1), Tydeiidae (2), (Acari: Prostigmata); Phytoseiidae (10) (Acari: Mesostigmata) and Acaridae (1) (Astigmata) were identified on woody ornamental plants and shrubs in Erzurum (Eastern part of Turkey). The samples were collected from Erzurum (Centrum, Pasinler, Köprüköy, Horasan, Aziziye-Ilıca, Aşkale, Tortum, Uzundere and Çat districts) with a weekly interval between April to October during 2015 and 2016. Five species were phytophagous mites (belong to Tenuipalpidae and Tetranychidae), while the others are considered as predators or feed on microorganisms, neutral in their habitats. Nineteen mite species representing in three orders: Amblyseius andersoni (Chant), Kampimodromus aberrans (Oudemans), Euseius finlandicus (Oudemans), Typlodromus cotoneastri (Wainstein), Neoseiulus astutus (Beglyarov), Phytoseius finitimus Ribaga, Typhlodromus ( Anthoseius ) kerkirae Swirski and Ragusa, Typhlodromus ( Anthoseius ) recki (Wainstein), Paraseiulus soleiger (Ribaga), Neoseiulella tiliarum (Oudemans), Zetzellia mali (Ewing), Tydeus kochi Oudemans, Tydeus californicus (Banks), Tetranychus urticae Koch, Bryobia rubrioculus (Scheuten), Bryobia praetiosa Koch, Cenopalpus pulcher (Canestini & Fanzago) Brevipalpus californicus (Banks), Tyrophagus putrescentiae. These results showed that Erzurum has rich biodiversity especially concerning predatory mite fauna. T. urticae (Schrank), was the most abundant and common phytophagous species (53.11%) while some other species were represented only one specimen ( Neoseiulus astutus (Beglyarov) (Phytoseiidae). Most preferred hosts plants were Philadelphus coronarius L. (Hydrangeaceae) (8), Malus coronaria L. (Rosaceae) (7) and Rosa canina L. (Rosaceae) (6) while Syringa vulgaris L. (Oleaceae ), Salix sp. (Salicaceae ) and Rosa pisiformis (Christ) (Rosaceae) were populated by only (2) and (1) mite species respectively.


Introduction
Ecological condition in Erzurum and its neighbourhoods area are not suitable for several exotic outdoor ornamental plants to grow. However, the area is located phytogeographically in ancient Mesopotamian area. Therefore, plant species which can grow naturally in these areas can provide a rich ecological diversity. Erzurum is located at 2000 m altitude. Ornamental plants have several functional and aesthetic landscape values by being a native tree and small tree species of the region (Irmak 2013).
Several surveys were conducted to determine the mite species associated with woody ornamentals and shrubs of World-wide. It was reported several new mite species for the Hungary (Ripka et al 2002;2005;Szabó et al 2009). In Turkey, some mites especially belong to Tetranychidae, Tenuipalpidae, Eriophyidae and Phytoseiidae species were identified on ornamental and park plants (Alaoğlu 1991;1996;Faraji et al 2011;Çobanoğlu et al 2016).
Therefore, it is a major necessitates a thorough investigation into the mites associated with ornamental plants for determination of the mite biodiversity in Erzurum. Survey studies can provide detection of predatory species are rich which are potential for biological control of economical important pests on ornamental plants.
The goal of the study is to determine mite species on shrubs and woody ornamental plants in Erzurum plateau during 2015-2016.

Material and Methods
The surveys were carried out on woody ornamentals and shrubs in Erzurum. The samples were collected 11 different host plants: 1.  Table 1).

Figure 1. Sampling localities: Erzurum (Eastern Part of Turkey) ( )
The samples were deposited in the mite collection at Ankara University and Atatürk University Plant Protection Department of Turkey. The samples were collected from April to October of each year (2015 and 2016) with a weekly interval. The mites were collected randomly from the different height of the plants. The sampling was conducted from ornamental plants in landscape areas such as parks, gardens, roadsides, school and home gardens.
All the mite samples were extracted by Berlese funnel. The mites were kept in 70% ethanol and afterwards, cleared in Lacto-phenol solution and prepared in Hoyer's medium, later they dried for 15-20 days at 50 °C (Henderson 2001).
The collections were made by K. Akçakoyunluoğlu (Atatürk University).

Results and Discussion
In total, 241 specimens were collected from shrubs and woody ornamental plants which were 98 from Rosa canina L. (Rosaceae), 67 from R. aureum and 39 from P. coronarius.
In a total of 19 mite species were identified in 3 different orders and 6 families. Three species of Tetranychidae, two Tenuipalpidae, ten Phytoseiidae and one species from Astigmata were identified. In these Tetranychidae and Tenuipalpidae species are plant-parasitic while one species of Acaridae is saprophagous and the rest are predatory species (Phytoseidae and Stigmaeidae) while Tydeidae includes neutral species (Table 2, 3).  (Faraji et al 2011;. A. andersoni was collected in Erzurum as 16 specimen 7.05% (Table 3).  4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Tetranychidae T. urticae In total 241 100. Comments: Euseius finlandicus is common on different plants throughout Turkey (Faraji et al 2011). It was recorded from eggplants, tomatoes, pepper, nightshade plants and Datura stramonium L. (Rosaceae) from Ankara, Bursa and Yalova Region of Turkey (Çobanoğlu & Kumral 2014;Kumral & Çobanoğlu 2016). It was identified from Erzurum (Alaoğlu 1996). It is abundant in Erzurum on parks and ornamental plant at 18.67%.
Comments: This species was collected on Citrus trees in Mersin and from Aegean vineyards (Göven et al 1999). B. californicus is rare species and collected as only one specimen. Comments: T. urticae is an important plant parasitic mite species which has distributed world-wide with more than 150 host plants and distributed all around Turkey (Ecevit 1981;Çobanoğlu & Kumral 2014;. It is very common on the ornamental plants in Erzurum. It was found 53.11% of the identified samples. It was collected from eight host plant species in Erzurum (Table 3). ( (Ecevit 1981;Göven et al 1999;Uysal et al 2001;Özman & Çobanoğlu 2001). Bryobia species collected mostly on neglected trees. It was found (1.24%) among the other mite species on P. coronoria and M. coronoria (Table 3). (1836) Material examined -Aziziye-Dadaşkent; 29.VI.2015, (1♀) R. dumalis.

Bryobia praetiosa Koch
Comments: This species was reported Ankara on Fragaria ananassa, M.communis and Ficus carica (Uysal et al 2001). It was found 0.41% in Erzurum.

Conclusions
Nineteen mite species are identified on woody ornamental plants in Erzurum. T. urticae, B. rubrioculus, T. kazachstanicus; E. finlandicus, K. aberrans, P. soleiger, P. talbii (Athias-Henriot), P. echinus, N. tiliarum, T. (A.) rhenanus, N. zwoelferi and P. okanagensis were identified previously (Ecevit 1981;Çobanoğlu 1989;Alaoğlu 1996). The rest of identified species in the parks and ornamental plants in Erzurum (A. andersoni, T. cotoneastri, N. astutus, P. finitimus, T. (A.) kerkirae, T. (A.) recki, Z. mali, T. kochi, T. californicus, B. praetiosa, C. pulcher, B. californicus and T. putrescentiae) are new records for this region. Erzurum has rich mite diversity especially concerning of beneficial mites because of rich host plants diversity and protected environment. Phytoseiidae members play important role as potential for biological control of economically important plant parasitic pests. Therefore, it is important to protect them in the environment. It will be useful to do more extensive studies in that area of Turkey.