diversity Review The Biodiversity of Water Mites That Prey on and Parasitize Mosquitoes 1,2, , 3, 4 1 Adrian A. Vasquez * y , Bana A. Kabalan y, Jeffrey L. Ram and Carol J. Miller 1 Healthy Urban Waters, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48202, USA;
[email protected] 2 Cooperative Institute for Great Lakes Research, School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, 440 Church Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA 3 Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences Program, School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA; bana.kabalan@ufl.edu 4 Department of Physiology, School of Medicine Wayne State University, Detroit, MI 48201, USA; jeff
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] These authors contributed equally to this work. y Received: 2 May 2020; Accepted: 4 June 2020; Published: 6 June 2020 Abstract: Water mites form one of the most biodiverse groups within the aquatic arachnid class. These freshwater macroinvertebrates are predators and parasites of the equally diverse nematocerous Dipterans, such as mosquitoes, and water mites are believed to have diversified as a result of these predatory and parasitic relationships. Through these two major biotic interactions, water mites have been found to greatly impact a variety of mosquito species. Although these predatory and parasitic interactions are important in aquatic ecology, very little is known about the diversity of water mites that interact with mosquitoes. In this paper, we review and update the past literature on the predatory and parasitic mite–mosquito relationships, update past records, discuss the biogeographic range of these interactions, and add our own recent findings on this topic conducted in habitats around the Laurentian Great Lakes.