Bueno… este semestre hemos comenzado con parte de las metas ya propuestas, como la recoleccion de muestras de suelo semanalmente. Como aun estamos en Febrero, y tenemos varias muestras atrasadas por examinar, por lo menos hemos logrado un progreso intermedio en lo que va de semestre. A pesar de los atrasos, por muchos asuntos que se nos presentaron a mi mentor y a mi, estoy satisfecha con el trabajo obtenido hasta ahora. Ya para esta semana tenemos oportunidad de ponernos al dia.
A continuacion el abstract de mi proyecto de investigacion.
Mites belong to the Arthropoda, the largest phylum among the animals. They belong to the class Arachnida, and are separated in three Orders: Opilioacariformes, Parasitiformes y Acariformes. The mites live in diverse habitats such as: in animals, plants, and in marine and freshwater habitats. They also are parasites of many animal species. Soil mites in particular, are a diverse community in which all orders are represented. However, we know little about the soil mites in Puerto Rico. Under normal conditions these arthropods are the most abundant in the soil. Mites and collembolans usually account for about 95% of total microarthropod numbers, with Oribatid mites the most numerically abundant group, often about 50% of the total microarthropods fauna. Because there are different forests, each with it’s own kind of plants, we can use species of mites as biological indicators. In Puerto Rico, researchers have worked in rain forests but not on coastal forests. This work aims to describe the soil mite fauna of coastal forests in southeastern Puerto Rico.
Soil samples were collected from a secondary forest located in the UPRH campus. Soil was loosened by hand, and approximately 50 ml (by volume) were emptied in a Berlese funnel for extraction. Berlese funnels use heat to extract the mites into alcohol. Heat from a lamp will make the invertebrates escape to the bottom so you can collect them in the alcohol. Samples were processed for approximately 48 hr. Specimens were collected on clearly marked jars, and the sample was examined under on a dissection microscope. Our study in the first semester was conducted in East coast soils in Puerto Rico. We found four families of mites, (Parasitidae, Ascidae, Oppiidae, Lohmaniidae) represented in the soil samples. Two mite genera (Oppia and Scheloribates) were identified, both belonging to the Oribatida.
The objective of the second semester was to compare the communities of mites on different
Soil types: wet soil and dry soil as indicated by their percent water content. Soil samples were collected from a secondary forest located in the UPRH campus. The average water content for normal soil location was 22 % and for the wet soil location was 30.3 %. The Wet Weight /Dry Weight Ratios are lowest for samples A-1, A-2, A-3, the driest samples, and higher for samples B-1, B-2, B-3, the wettest ones. Overall mite densities were very low. The number of mites/gram of soil ranged from 0.08 to 0.02 for dry soils and from 0.01 to 0.0 for wet soils. These results may be due to the fact that very small samples were processed on the Berlese funnels. Also, the UPRH forest is subject to periodic flooding due to alteration of water flow in the surrounding areas. We suspect that flooding negatively affects mite communities on this soil type.
