| abstract | 7 ponds of a wood near Kiel (Northern Germany) were visited one to two times every week from March 13 to June 18, 1984 and ana1ysed for their water mites.
The water level of the ponds shows clear changes depending on rainfall. A more ore less complete dry up takes place at irregular intervals of several years.
In all 1630 water mites (Adulti) belonging to 4 families and 17 species were caught. With 7 species the most abundant family are the Pionidae. Most of the 7 ponds, which are spatially close together, show a low quotient of similarity (41-50 %), i.e. the inventory of species differs notably. The latter obviously depends primarily on how a recolonization through the larval stage parasiting insects takes place after a dry up.
The 3 species with the largest numbers of individuals were Thyas barbigera, Hydryphantes sp. and Piana nodata. They were the only species found in all of the 7 analysed ponds.
We caught 12 individua1s of Piersigia intermedia, a rare species in Germany. Outside findings of host (4 species of Chironomidae) parasited by Piona alpicola are reported for the first time. Further bio1ogica1 information on the water mites refers primarily to the ovigerous fema1es caught with a number of species in spring and their number and size of eggs. |