Cilliba insularis Willmann

Stachowiak, Marcin, Halliday, Bruce & Bloszyk, Jerzy, 2008, Review of the genus Cilliba von Heyden (Acari: Uropodina: Cillibidae), Zootaxa 1881, pp. 1-42 : 19-20

Cilliba insularis Willmann

Cilliba cassidea var. insularis Willmann, 1938: 12 .

Uropoda (Cilliba) cassidea var. minima Hirschmann & Zirngiebl-Nicol, 1969b: 57 ; Hirschmann, 1979a: 20; Wiśniewski, 1993a: 270; 1993b: 421; Wiśniewski & Hirschmann, 1993: 191 (new synonymy).

Uropoda (Cilliba) insularis .— Hirschmann, 1979a: 20; 1979b: 79; Wiśniewski, 1993b: 421; Wiśniewski & Hirschmann, 1993: 193.

Cilliba rafalskii Bloszyk, 1984: 70 (nomen nudum).

Cilliba species II.— Bloszyk & Olszanowski, 1985: 488.

Cilliba cassidea .— Bloszyk & Olszanowski, 1986: 193.

Cilliba sp.— Bloszyk, 1990: 227; 1993: 176; 1995: 166; B l oszyk & Olszanowski, 1999: 44; B l oszyk & Krysiak, 2000: 117; Gwiazdowicz, 1999: 39.

Cilliba species I.— Bloszyk, 1991: 118; 1992: 324; 1998: 99; 1999: 160; B l oszyk et. al., 2001: 24; 2004: 1506; Skorupski, 2000: 27.

Uropoda (Cilliba) cassideasimilis .— Wiśniewski, 1993a: 259; 1993b: 421; Wiśniewski & Hirschmann, 1993: 192.

Uropoda (Cilliba) cassidea .— Gwiazdowicz, 1999: 39.

Uropoda (Cilliba) species 1.— Gwiazdowicz & Biernacik, 2000: 205; Skorupski, 2000: 27.

Uropoda aff. cassidea .— Mašán, 2001: 284.

Cilliba cassideasimilis B l oszyk, Stachowiak & Halliday, 2006: 13 (new synonymy).

Material examined. As given previously ( Bloszyk et al., 2006).

Description. As given previously ( Bloszyk et al., 2006).

Ecology. After C. cassidea , this is the most widely distributed species in Europe. It has been recorded by various authors from Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Ireland, and Spain. In Poland, C. insularis is the most frequent and abundant species of the genus Cilliba ( Fig. 67 B). It prefers beech forests, fir-beech forests, yew forests and Carpathian beechwoods, and it also occurs at high frequency in oak-hornbeam forests. It is occasionally found in sedge ( Carex ), calcareous rocky meadows, mixed forests with spruce, fir forests, spruce forests and mixed deciduous forests. It is most abundant below 600 m a.s.l., but its highest frequency among samples was recorded at a level of 800 to 1000 m a.s.l.

Cilliba cassidea var. insularis Willmann, 1938 was described from leaf litter in Madeira. The description and illustrations of this variety agree completely with those of C. cassideasimilis , especially in the distinctive shape and ornamentation of the epigynium. We also regard Uropoda (Cilliba) cassidea var. minima Hirschmann & Zirngiebl-Nicol, 1969 b as a synonym of C. insularis , on the basis of its size and the identical appearance of the epigynium.

Cilliba rafalskii B ı oszyk, Stachowiak & Halliday

Cilliba cassideasimilis Bloszyk, 1984: 70 (nomen nudum).

Cilliba species I.— Bloszyk & Olszanowski, 1985: 488.

Cilliba species II.— Bloszyk, 1991: 118; 1992: 324; 1995: 166; 1998: 99; 1999: 161; Bloszyk et al., 2001: 24; 2004: 1504.

Uropoda (Cilliba) rafalski (sic).— Wiśniewski, 1993a: 259; 1993b: 421; Wiśniewski & Hirschmann, 1993: 193 (nomen nudum).

Cilliba rafalskii Bloszyk, Stachowiak & Halliday, 2006: 27 .

Material examined. As given previously ( Bloszyk et al., 2006).

Description. As given previously ( Bloszyk et al., 2006).

Ecology. This is a central European species, known so far only from Poland ( Fig. 1 ). It is most commonly found in beech and oak-hornbeam forests, but also occurs in mixed deciduous forests, marshy forest, beech-fir forests and Carpathian beech forests. In these habitats C. rafalskii is usually found only in low numbers. It has been found occasionally in rotten logs and in calcareous rocky meadows, and its optimal altitude is below 400 m a.s.l.

Figures

FIGURE 1. Distribution of Cilliba spp. = C. athiasae; = C. cassidoidea; = C. stammeri; polygon = C. rafalskii.

FIGURE 67. Regional abundance of Cilliba species in geographical regions of Poland. Levels of shading represent the mean number of specimens of each species per sample (0.5 litres of seived leaf litter per sample). A = C. cassidea; B = C. insularis; C = C. erlangensis; D = C. rafalskii; E = C. sellnicki.