Taxonomic Studies On Unionicolidae From China (Acari: Hygrobatoidea)

The family Unionicolidae is an important group of water mites.It is classified into 5 subfamilies,18 gener,0 subgenera and there are about 200 known species worldwide.The present dissertation mainly deals with taxonomy from China with phylogenetic and biogeographic analysis at generic level in the family.There are 34 species including 8 species new to science and 1 new to China described belong to 2 subfamilies,Unionicolinae and Pionatacinae in the study.A new species and a new record one of 14 species in Unionicolinae are Unionicola cyclophoe Viets,1966 and U.(Pentatax) torquis sp.n..There are 18 species in Pionatacinae,of which 7 new species are Neumania(Neumania) ungula sp.n.,N.(Neumania) multilammina sp.n.,N.(Neumania) multisetus sp.n.,N.(Neumania) nigrousr sp.n., N.(Neumania) rectus sp.n.,N.(Neumania) differentia sp.n.and N.(Neumania) aequseta sp.n..Phylogenetic analysis of the 2 subfamilies Unionicolinae and Pionatacinae are analyzed with 29 morphological characters using computer program Hennig86.The results show that acetabulum is an important charater not only for taxonomics but also for phylogenetics.Chinese known species known species in Pionatacinae could be grouped into 3 species groups and those in Unionicolinae 2 species groups based on the relationship of sister groups showed in the phylogenetic tree.The biogeographic cladistic analysis of 41 subgenera in family and 4 subgenera from China are made with available data in literature.The results showed that the Neotropical,Afrotropical and Nearctic are the most principle with proportions of 51.79%(29 generic taxa),41.07%(23 generic taxa) and 25%(14 generic taxa)separately,while 9 subgenera.Accounting for 16.07%.are the Oriental.As for 4 subgenera known from China,the Oriental and the Afrotropical account for 28.6% separately,which suggest that the Chinese mernbers known might be of the origin of the Orientat-Afrotropical.