"Dangerous little monsters - under the microscope"
Where can you find mites ?
Mites have successfully colonized nearly every known terrestrial, marine, and fresh water habitat including polar and alpine extremes, tropical lowlands and desert barrens, surface and mineral soils to depths of 10 meters, cold and thermal surface springs and subterranean waters with temperatures as high as 50C, all types of streams, ponds and lakes, and sea waters of continental shelves and deep sea trenches to depths of 5000 meters. Some idea of mite abundance and diversity can be gained from analysis of one square meter of mixed temperate hardwood or boreal coniferous litter, which may harbour upwards from one million mites representing 200 species in at least 50 families. Within this complex matrix of decomposing plant matter, mites help to regulate microbial processes directly by feeding on detritus and microbes, and indirectly by predation on other microfauna.
Many mites have complex symbiotic associations with the larger organisms on which they live. Plants, including crops and the canopies of tropical rainforests, are inhabited by myriads of mite species feeding on mosses, ferns, leaves, stems, flowers, fruit, lichens, microbes, other arthropods and each other. Many mites found on agricultural crops are major economic pests (e.g. spider mites) or useful biocontrol agents (e.g. phytoseiid mites) of those pests. Mammals and birds are hosts to innumerable species of parasitic mites (e.g. scabies and mange mites), as are many reptiles and some amphibians. Insects, especially those that build nests, live in semipermanent habitats like decaying wood, or use more ephemeral habitats like bracket fungi and dung, are hosts to a cornucopia of mite commensals, parasites and mutualists.
Mites and ticks which feed on vertebrate hair or blood often carry disease organisms, such as spirochete bacteria, responsible for relapsing fever and Lyme disease. Others are rather unpleasant parasites themselves, such as ticks and the skin mites that cause mange and scabies.
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