Taxonomic and structural similarities in soil oribatid communities

We examined the taxonomic and structural concordance between oribatid mite communities at different sites from around the world using meta-analysis. T he study explored similarities in the taxonomic composition and species abu ndance distributions among oribatid mite communities using 25 published spe cies lists from Africa, Australia, Europe, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United States. The final data set contained 253 genera from 97 familie s in 43 superfamilies. A second data set, which included only studies where trees were present at the sites, contained 234 genera, 93 families and 41 superfamilies. Composition was analysed at taxonomic levels higher than spe cies. Only two families and four superfamilies were present in >90% of all studies. Two genera, six families and seven superfamilies were found in all sites with trees. Common families were different among habitats suggesting that habitat preferences may be expressed at the family level. There were very strong relationships between oribatid mite species richness and richne ss at higher taxonomic levels with r(2) values for regression relationships > 0.8. Few species at a site were from the same genus, family or superfami ly. Species abundance distributions were remarkably consistent between stud ies with the three most dominant species each constituting > 10% of the ori batid individuals. Overall, similar factors may determine the relative prop ortions of soil-dwelling oribatid species at a site.