Vaghia carinata Travé, 1956

Revelo-Tobar, Harol, Ojeda, Margarita, García-Ayala, Leonardo J. & Palacios-Vargas, José G., 2024, Checklist Of Oribatid Mites (Acari: Oribatida) From Mexico, Zootaxa 5465 (1), pp. 1-178 : 168-170

Vaghia carinata Travé, 1956

Distribution: Southwest Europe and Mexico.

Records in Mexico: Quintana Roo.

Biogeographic province: Yucatan Peninsula.

Habitat: Leaf litter and soil of medium sub evergreen forest, lowland forest, mangrove and halophyte vegetation.

References: Vázquez & Prieto (2001): 78–79; Vázquez et al. (2016): 147–162.

General remarks

The checklist of oribatid mites of Mexico presented herein includes 768 species belonging to 378 genera, 117 families, 43 superfamilies and six infraorders; 17% (102) of the records were originally described as new species from the country; 72 species were described by nationals, most of them by Palacios-Vargas and collaborators ( Iglesias et al. 2001; Ojeda et al. 2022; Ojeda, et al. 2020; Páez et al. 2019; Palacios-Vargas et al. 1998; Palacios-Vargas & Iglesias 1997b; Ríos & Palacios-Vargas 1998; Villagomez et al. 2021). Among the foreign acarologist are pioneers as Banks (1915), Sellnick (1931), Grandjean (1964, 1965) and Woolley (1971), and others as Balogh & Balogh (1988, 1990), Balogh & Palacios-Vargas (1996), Mahunka (1982, 1983), Niedbała (2004), Norton & Palacios-Vargas (1982) and recently Ermilov & O’Connor (2021), Ermilov & Yurtaev (2023b). 61.8 % of the species belong to the infraorder Brachypylina , an expected proportion of the most diverse group of Oribatida ( Norton & Behan-Pelletier 2009) . The superfamilies Oppioidea (9.1%) Oripodoidea (15.6%), Crotonioidea (6.8%), Phthiracaroidea (4.3%), Galumnoidea (5.3%) contained almost 40 % of the total records.

Records were made in 12 of the 14 biogeographic provinces of the territory of Mexico ( Fig. 1 ). The provinces with the highest number of species reported were Yucatan Peninsula, 525 species, followed by the Veracruzan with 241, Transmexican Volcanic Belt 179, Sierra Madre Oriental 129, Chihuahua Desert 112, Pacific Lowlands 105, two provinces (Californian and Sonoran) do not have records. From the total number of species reported for Mexico (768), 502 (65.36%) species are only known from one state. Sonora, Sinaloa, and Tlaxcala States do not have any record for oribatid mites, and the highest number of species corresponded to Quintana Roo (497), Veracruz (209), Hidalgo (103), Campeche (97) and State of Mexico (88) ( Fig. 2 ). The number of records displayed can be explained mainly by two factors; the first corresponds to the area where a researcher's laboratory is located, such as the state of Quintana Roo, where Vázquez and collaborators have dedicated more than 20 years to work on soil fauna, including mites and other groups of microarthropods in this region. The second is largely due to the research projects carried out by various academic institutions in Mexico with interest in knowing the diversity of soil mites and their ecological role in different environments, such as the canopy, agricultural fields, and soils in grasslands, forests, humid jungles, such is the case of the research projects carried out in Los Tuxtlas reserve in the state of Veracruz ( Villagomez et al. 2019; Palacios-Vargas et al 2022). In the Californian and Sonoran provinces, an opposite phenomenon occurs, where there are no researchers or institutions interested in the soil fauna, particularly in oribatid mites.

As for the species or genera with the most records, this is also a reflection of the choice of a particular group of oribatids, whether due to its morphology, its abundance in a site or simply due to the ease of taxonomic work, hence groups such as ptychoid oribatid mites, Ojeda's working group, are the ones with the most records per state, Acrotritia ardua is distributed in 17 of the 32, followed by A. vestita in 13, Atropacarus (Hoplophorella) hamatus and A. (H.) vitrinus in 9. Genera with the greatest number of species are Scheloribates (25), Scapheremaeus (23), Pergalumna and Acrotrita (12), Nothrus , Carabodes , Galumna and Mesotria (11), the rest of the species with less than 10 records. Considering biotopes where species are collected, records of species in litter (709) and soil (644) are the most abundant, followed by canopy, caves, and mosses (117, 94 and 93 respectively).

Since the publication of the catalogue of Palacios-Vargas & Iglesias, 2004 records has increased by almost 50% of the described species, this reflects the great work done by Dr. Palacios-Vargas' group at UNAM (Ojeda et al. 2020; Ojeda & Gasca-Pineda 2019; Páez et al. 2019; Palacios-Vargas et al. 2011; Villagomez et al. 2017, 2019). However, most of these records are related to faunistic studies of soils in a few areas of the country. There is a need for focused and coordinated research on Oribatida and other mite groups in the northern region of Mexico and other states of the country, where records are scarce. These are recommended starting points for future studies and emphasize the need to educate new researchers to approach this important scientific paradigm.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Biogeographic provinces of Mexico according to Morrone et al. (2017).

FIGURE 2. Number of species of oribatid mites found in different states of México. State name abbreviations and their meanings: AGS: Aguascalientes, BC: Baja California, BCS: Baja California Sur, CAM: Campeche, CHIS: Chiapas, CHIH: Chihuahua, CDMX: Mexico City, COAH: Coahuila, COL: Colima, DUR: Durango, GTO: Guanajuato, GRO: Guerrero, HGO: Hidalgo, JAL: Jalisco, MEX: State of Mexico, MICH: Michoacan, MOR: Morelos, NAY: Nayarit, NL: Nuevo Leon, OAX: Oaxaca, PUE: Puebla, QRO: Queretaro, QROO: Quintana Roo, SLP: San Luis Potosi, TAB: Tabasco, TAM: Tamaulipas, VER: Veracruz, YUC: Yucatan, ZAC: Zacatecas.