Microgeographic diversity of Uropodina (Acari Mesostigmata) communities in dead wood and tree hollows

The current study is aimed at establishing species composition of Uropodina mite fauna in dead wood habitats in a selected forest complex in western Poland. In this case the study focuses on three natural reserves of Wielkopolska. In 278 samples of dead wood and 71 from tree hollows collected between 2002-2004, 27 species of Uropodina were found. The material collected from the tree hollows contained only 12 species. The two species that were most numerous in the analysed material were Oodinychus ovalis and Olodiscus minima. The lower number of species inhabiting the tree hollows stems from the fact that such microhabitats are isolated inaccessible places. The main factor that is responsible for the difference in the abundance of uropodine mites in both microhabitats are seasonal changes in temperature. Moreover, the results of the analyses show that species composition of Uropodina communities in dead wood and tree hollows can be different even within one forest complex, which suggests that the process of diversification in Uropodina communities inhabiting dead wood merocoenoses probably takes place at the microgeographic level