Biogeographic distribution of the Phytoseiidae (Acari: Mesostigmata) MARIE-STÉPHANE TIXIER 1 *, SERGE KREITER 1 and GILBERTO J. DE MORAES 2 1 Montpellier SupAgro/Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, Unité d’Ecologie animale et de Zoologie Agricole, UMR CBGP, 2 Place Pierre Viala, 34060 Montpellier cedex 01, France 2 ESALQ, Departamento de Entomologia, Fitopatologia e Zoologia Agricola, Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz/Universidade de Sao Paulo, 13418-900 Piracicaba, Sao Paulo, Brazil Received 9 November 2006; accepted for publication 30 June 2007 More than 1982 species in 90 genera were included in an analysis of the biogeography of the Phytoseiidae, a family of predatory mites. Seven biogeographic regions were taken into account: Nearctic, Neotropical, Ethiopian, West Palaearctic, East Palaearctic, Oriental, and Australasian. The number of species was particularly high in the Neotropical, Oriental, and West Palaearctic regions. These regions also present the highest levels of species endemism. The number of genera was quite similar in all regions except for the Neotropics, which also had a high level of endemism. The possible Gondwanian (Neotropical, Ethiopian, Australasian, and Oriental regions) origin of the Phytoseiidae, most probably in the Neotropics, and their possible radiation to Laurasia (Nearctic, West Palaearctic, and East Palaearctic regions) are discussed. The comparison between genera and species in the different biogeographic regions indicate the importance of both dispersal and vicariance events in the evolution of the group. Dispersal is assumed to have been most important between Neotropical and Nearctic regions and between East Palaearctic and Oriental regions, whereas vicariance could have been the dominating process between Australasian, Ethiopian, and Oriental regions, as well as between West and East Palaearctic regions. A parsimony analysis of endemicity showed the Neotropical and the Nearctic regions to be isolated from the other regions. This is certainly due to a diversification after the continents drifted apart and then a high dispersal between Nearctic and Neotropical regions. Different phylogenetic hypotheses and scenarios are proposed for each subfamily based on the results obtained and further investigations are proposed. © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 845–856. ADDITIONAL KEYWORDS: biodiversity – taxonomy. INTRODUCTION The Phytoseiidae Berlese is a mite family of the order Mesostigmata (Chant & McMurtry, 1994). They are well known as predators of phytophagous mites (Kos- tiainen & Hoy, 1996; McMurtry & Croft, 1997). The Phytoseiidae probably diverged from its sister group, the Ascidae, some 80 Mya with the origin of the vascular plants, and are the only taxon of the Mesos- tigmata whose species live mostly on plants (Chant, 1993). A single fossil record of a mite assigned to the Phytoseiidae has been reported from Upper Eocene Baltic amber (approximately 40 Mya) (Selden, 1993). The 1982 species of Phytoseiidae presently described (Moraes et al., 2004) are grouped into three subfami- lies (Amblyseiinae, Phytoseiinae, and Typhlodromi- nae) and 90 genera, defined primarily according to idiosomal chaetotactic patterns (Chant, 1993; Chant & McMurtry, 2003a, b; Moraes, McMurtry & Mineiro, 2003; Ragusa, 2003; Chant & McMurtry, 2004a, b; Moraes et al., 2004; Chant & McMurtry, 2005a, b, c; Chant & McMurtry, 2006a, b; Kreiter & Tixier, 2006). Some genera contain very few species (30 genera have only one species), whereas others have a large number of species, such as Amblyseius Berlese (295 spp.), Neoseiulus Hughes (276 spp.), Euseius Wain- stein (150 spp.), Phytoseius Ribaga (168 spp.) and Typhlodromus (Anthoseius) De Leon (285 spp.). This presents study comprises the first investigation of the biogeography of the Phytoseiidae, based on a compi- lation of records assessed from the literature (Chant & McMurtry, 2003a, b; Moraes et al., 2003; Ragusa, *Corresponding author. E-mail: tixier@supagro.inra.fr Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 845–856. With 2 figures © 2008 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2008, 93, 845–856 845 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/biolinnean/article-abstract/93/4/845/2701162 by guest on 03 June 2020