Abstract:
Mites belonging to the order Mesostigmata have different types of life, those which populate soil habitats and litter
being generally free living predators. Predatory mites play a leading role in biological control, but they are considered
useful in bioindication, also. This study explored in a comparative way the edaphic gamasid communities from a series
of forest ecosystems, meadows and agroecosystems in order to evaluate the impact of natural and anthropic factors and
to highlight the bioindicator value of these mites. Both a quantitative and a qualitative analysis were performed. The
degree of anthropization could be evidenced at the level of all analyzed ecosystems. A reduction of the number of
species and individuals in the ecosystems marked by human interventions was observed. Generally, the phenomenon
was more pronounced in forest ecosystems than in the praticolous ones. From the point of view of the ecological
peculiarities of the species, a differentiation was noticed that in natural forests the silvicolous species are dominating
while in plantations, meadows and agroecosystems the praticolous ones are the majority. In the case of natural forests
the best represented family is Zerconidae with 2 genera and 8 species. In the rest of the studied ecosystems on the first
place is Hypoaspididae with 1, 2 or 3 genera and 5 species or even more.
