The effect of light source characteristics on the extraction process of soil mites by the Berlese-Tulgrene funnel

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Fatemeh Ordouni ¹
• sara ramroodi ¹
• Abbas Khani ²
• Alireza Arjmandi-Nezhad ³

¹ Department of Plant Protection, College of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran

² Plant Protection, Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zabol, Zabol, Iran.

³ Department of Plant Protection, Agriculture and natural resources research and education center of Guilan.

Abstract

Keywords

• Berlese-Tulgrene funnel
• Sistan & Baluchestan
• light
• mite
• soil

Extended Abstract

Introduction

Soil contains great numbers of various living organisms assembled in complex and varied communities. A high proportion of soil fauna is the arthropods, the most abundant are collembolans, and mites, while other arthropods include spiders, millipedes, centipedes, and insects. Mites belong to subclass Acari which forms an important part of the class Arachnida. This subclass has a very long history in terms of living on the planet and is considered one of the oldest land-dwelling animals. Subclass Acari is composed of two superorders: Acariformes (or Actinotrichida) and Parasitiformes (or Anactinotrichida). The superorder Acariformes is composed of two orders: Sarcoptiformes and Trombidiformes. The superorder parasitiformes is composed of four orders: Opilioacarida, Holothyrida, Metastigmata, and Mesostigmata. The Acari differ from other Arachnida by the fusion of the abdominal segments as in Araneae (spiders) and from spiders by the presence of a gnathosoma containing mouthparts, the fusion of the posterior part of the prosoma (the podosoma, bearing legs) and fusion of an opisthosoma into an idiosoma. Most species are free-living and have different trophic modes, including phytophagous, predators feeding on a variety of small invertebrates, fungivores, and detritivores. Some species have developed complex parasitic relationships with both vertebrate and invertebrate animals. One of the most popular and easiest methods of extracting mites and other small soil arthropods for qualitative and quantitative studies is the Berlese-Tullgren extraction method. The apparatus was first invented by A. Berlese and later modified by A. Tullgren. Thus, the apparatus is also called the Berlese funnel or Berlese-Tullgren funnel. The principle mechanism of the extraction is that the funnel creates warm and dry conditions at the upper part by a lighting source equipped on the top, which leads the litter and soil-dwelling invertebrates to move down the funnel away from the light source and finally fall out to collecting bottle.

Materials and methods

In this research, the effect of the light radiation of bubble incandescent lamps and half screw low power consumption lamps in the Berlese-Tulgrene funnel structure on the process of extracting mites in the samples collected from Hamoon City in Sistan and Baluchestan province, during the years 2019 and 2021, was investigated. After placing the samples in the funnels, on the first day of extraction, the lamps were off for 24 hours, after this period, the lamps of the funnels were turned on for 24, 48, and 72 hours and shone on the samples in the funnel.

Results and discussion

The analysis of the obtained results by SPSS software version 21 showed that the number of isolated mites decreased with the increase of light irradiation time, and the maximum number of species was extracted in the conditions of a day without light. Also, the results of the data analysis showed that in the conditions of daylight, the effect of the light radiation of the light bulb and low-consumption semi-torque lamps has a significant difference.

Conclusion

The conditions without light and one day of light were the most suitable conditions for the extraction of the examined mites samples by the Berlese-Tulgrene funnel in this research.