COMMUNITY COMPOSITION AND SEASONAL VARIATION OF SOIL MITES IN AN APPLE ORCHARD IN BEIJING, CHINA.

As one of the most abundant arthropod groups in soil, mites play an important role in the soil food web. Considering the lack of knowledge about temporal patterns of agricultural soil mite communities, we focused on the seasonal dynamics of soil mite communities (taxonomic and functional) in an apple orchard in the suburb of Beijing City, China. With sampling once per month for one year, a total of 7238 mites representing 45 species were collected. The top five most abundant species, Scheloribates latipes, Oribatula truncate, Ramusella sengbuschi, Scheloribates fimbriatus javensis, and Tectoribates mahunkai represented 83.5% of the total abundance of adult mites. The abundance, species richness and Shannon index of mites were similar among the four seasons. The soil abiotic factors (temperature and pH) had a significant relationship with some mite groups according to Pearson correlation analysis. Rao's quadratic entropy index (RaoQ), functional evenness index (FEve) and body size of oribatid mites were used to show the community function dynamics among temporal scales. We found that FEve and functional traits of oribatid mites were significantly different among four seasons. These results provide a good reference to understand the seasonal changes of soil mite communities and soil food web functions in orchards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]