Abstract
MITES parasitise a broad spectrum of metazoans—molluscs, arthropods and vertebrates, including man. They transmit various pathogens to these hosts, and may cause severe medical and economic damage1,2. Host preferences are commonly restricted to one or a few species3, and parasitism may result in profound ecological or biological effects, for example, the regulation of clutch size in birds4. Such effects have prompted some investigators to suggest the use of acarine parasites as natural control agents5,6. In spite of all these factors, little is known about how mites select their hosts. We studied host discrimination in a typical acarine parasite, Proctolaelaps nauphoetae (Womersley)7,8, and report that it uses a chemical sense to guide it to its only host, the cockroach Nauphoeta cinerea (Olivier).
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EGAN, M., BARTH, R. & HANSON, F. Chemically-mediated host selection in a parasitic mite. Nature 257, 788–790 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/257788a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/257788a0
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