Comparison of communities of stored product mites in grain mass and grain residues in the Czech Republic

In storage facilities one can find grain either in stored grain mass or in grain residues in the store corners or machinery. Although it is claimed that grain residues are serious pest reservoirs since they harbor numbers of stored product arthropods and are connected via continuous emigration with grain mass, the documentation for this is not convincing. Therefore in 78 selected grain stores, we simultaneously sampled the grain mass and residues in order to compare concurrent mite communities in these two different habitats. We found 30 species in about 614 000 individuals in residues and 23 species in about 20 000 individuals in grain mass. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of transformed abundance data showed differences in the communities of mites in grain mass and residues: (i) species associated to grain residues (e.g. Tyrophagus longior, Tydeus interruptus, Acarus farris and Cheyletus eruditus) and (ii) species associated to both grain mass and grain residues (e.g. Tarsonemus granarius, Acarus siro, Tyrophagus putrescentiae, Lepidoglyphus destructor and Cheyletus malaccensis). Although the residue samples had more mites and higher species diversity than the stored grain mass, no correlation in mite abundance and species numbers between samples from grain residues and grain mass was found, thereby indicating low connectivity of these two habitats.