The 20th anniversary of a model mite: A review of current knowledge about Archegozetes longisetosus (Acari, Oribatida) M. Heethoff, P. Bergmann, M. Laumann, R.A. Norton To cite this version: M. Heethoff, P. Bergmann, M. Laumann, R.A. Norton. The 20th anniversary of a model mite:Are- view of current knowledge about Archegozetes longisetosus (Acari, Oribatida). Acarologia, Acarologia, 2013, 53 (4), pp.353-368. 10.1051/acarologia/20132108. hal-01566264 HAL Id: hal-01566264 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01566264 Submitted on 20 Jul 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License ACAROLOGIA A quarterly journal of acarology, since 1959 Publishing on all aspects of the Acari All information: http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/acarologia/ [email protected] Acarologia is proudly non-profit, with no page charges and free open access Please help us maintain this system by encouraging your institutes to subscribe to the print version of the journal and by sending us your high quality research on the Acari. Subscriptions: Year 2017 (Volume 57): 380 € http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/acarologia/subscribe.php Previous volumes (2010-2015): 250 € / year (4 issues) Acarologia, CBGP, CS 30016, 34988 MONTFERRIER-sur-LEZ Cedex, France The digitalization of Acarologia papers prior to 2000 was supported by Agropolis Fondation under the reference ID 1500-024 through the « Investissements d’avenir » programme (Labex Agro: ANR-10-LABX-0001-01) Acarologia is under free license and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons-BY-NC-ND which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Acarologia 53(4): 353–368 (2013) DOI: 10.1051/acarologia/20132108 THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY OF A MODEL MITE: A REVIEW OF CURRENT KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ARCHEGOZETES LONGISETOSUS (ACARI, ORIBATIDA) Michael HEETHOFF1,2*, Paavo BERGMANN2,4, Michael LAUMANN2 and Roy A. NORTON3 (Received 02 September 2013; accepted 12 November 2013; published online 19 December 2013) 1 Ecological Networks, Darmstadt University of Technology, Schnittspahnstr. 3, 64287 Darmstadt, Germany. (*Corresponding author) [email protected] 2 Institute for Evolution and Ecology, Eberhard Karls University Tuebingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 28E, 72076 Tübingen, Germany. [email protected], [email protected] 3 S.U.N.Y College of Environmental Science & Forestry, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, New York 13210, USA. [email protected] 4 Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart, Rosenstein 1, 70191 Stuttgart, Germany ABSTRACT — With about 10,000 described species and densities reaching 400,000 ind/m2, the Oribatida (without Astig- mata) represent the most prevalent group of soil mites. However, with the exception of their taxonomy, many aspects of the biology of oribatid mites have been poorly studied. This might be explained in part by the previous lack of a model species. However, in the last 20 years, more and more non-taxonomic studies regarding development, genet- ics, morphology, chemical ecology and ecotoxicology have become available, with a significant number focused on the trhypochthoniid oribatid mite Archegozetes longisetosus. A well-defined laboratory strain of this pantropical partheno- genetic species was established in 1993 by one of us (RAN), and has since spread through numerous laboratories world- wide. In this review, we summarize the scientific achievements this lineage has enabled while becoming a model system for general zoology, ecology and evolution. KEYWORDS — model organism; Chelicerata; Acari; Oribatida WHAT MAKES A MODEL ORGANISM ? sciences. However, research fostered by the estab- lishment of model organisms also demonstrated the Several major leaps in understanding life on earth difficulties of generalizing results, especially when can be attributed to the adoption of model organ- the model organism was only distantly related to isms. Species like the rockcress Arabidopsis thaliana the taxa to which researchers wished to apply the (L.) Heynh 1842, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster results. Expanding the number of model taxa cover- Meigen 1830, the zebrafish Danio rerio (Hamilton, ing traditionally recognized major metazoan clades 1822) and the rat Rattus norvegicus (Berkenhout, could help solve this problem. 1769) provided starting points for examining the complexity of life in detail. Comparisons of in- The Chelicerata represent a major subgroup of dividual studies with results from model species the Arthropoda and have a long evolutionary his- have yielded insights into phylogeny, physiology, tory, dating at least to the Ordovician era (Weygoldt, genetics, evolution and several other fields of life 1998). Despite its diversity, only a few species of http://www1.montpellier.inra.fr/CBGP/acarologia/ 353 ISSN 0044-586-X (print). ISSN 2107-7207 (electronic) Heethoff M. et al. chelicerates have been investigated thoroughly: e.g. tions; see Thomas, 2000 and Grbic et al., 2007), a lab- the horseshoe crab Limulus polyphemus L., the spider oratory strain was named Archegozetes longisetosus Cupiennius salei (Keyserling 1877), the ticks Ixodes ran (Heethoff et al., 2007a) in reference to its founder ricinus (Linnaeus, 1758) and I. scapularis Ray, 1821, (R. A. Norton). The parthenogenetic lineage was or the spider mite Tetranychus urticae Koch 1836. raised from one single gravid female taken from a Since the phylogeny of Chelicerata is still controver- population sampled in 1993 from coconut debris in sial, further chelicerate model species are needed Puerto Rico (Smrž and Norton, 2004) and since then for comparative analyses. This is particularly true its offspring have been spread through numerous of the highly diverse Acari, which are found in laboratories worldwide. In this review, we sum- almost any habitat from subarctic glacial springs marize the more than 70 existing scientific papers to tropical rainforests, and have become increas- dealing with taxonomy, ecology, phylogeny, mor- ingly recognized as important model systems (Wal- phology and development of A. longisetosus, many ter and Proctor, 2010). While Acari is a tradition- of which were based on this strain. ally recognized taxon consisting of Actinotrichida (= Acariformes) and Anactinotrichida (= Parasiti- formes+Opilioacarida), doubt has repeatedly been TAXONOMY AND DISTRIBUTION cast concerning whether these two groups really Archegozetes form a monophyletic clade or whether ’Acari’ is di- The genus was proposed by Grand- Epilohmannia phyletic and therefore an artificial systematic entity jean (1931) with the Sumatran species magna (Dabert et al. 2010 and references therein). Within Sellnick, 1925 as type by original designa- the Actinotrichida, the Sarcoptiformes are consid- tion. It was proposed without a diagnosis or refer- ered to comprise Astigmata and Oribatida, al- ence to a family, and its first classification appears though the phylogenetic relationship between these to be that of Vitzthum (1942) who included it in two taxa remains controversial. Some authors pro- Epilohmanniidae. This assignment was made ap- pose the origin of Astigmata to be nested within parently with the same level of doubt with which Oribatida, rendering the traditional concept of ’Ori- Sellnick (1925) assigned the type species (accompa- Epilohman- batida’ paraphyletic (Norton 1994, 1998; Dabert et nied by a question-mark) to the genus nia al., 2010). When following the arguments of Norton . In his seminal paper on oribatid mite clas- Archegozetes (1994), one candidate as sister-group of Astigmata sification, Grandjean (1954) included is the oribatid family Trhypochthoniidae, which in Trhypochthoniidae Willmann 1931, though also consists of about 65 obligatorily parthenogenetic with unexplained doubt, and it has remained there. species (Maraun et al., 2004; Heethoff et al., 2011a). Beck’s (1967) analysis of this family placement is Hence, thorough knowledge of a model species in the most complete. Trhypochthoniidae currently this family will help us to understand: (i) the evolu- comprises 65 species in nine genera in the middle- tionary origin of the Astigmata, (ii) the phylogenetic derivative oribatid mite hyporder Nothrina, of the relationship of Anactinotrichida and Actinotrichida infraorder Desmonomata (Subías, 2004; Norton and et al. and (iii) their position within the Chelicerata. Behan-Pelletier, 2009; Schatz , 2011). Only seven species-group names have been pro- One member of Trhypochthoniidae, Archegozetes posed, but despite this low diversity there has longisetosus Aoki, 1965 (Fig. 1), has already been re- been much confusion in the literature. Archegozetes ferred to as a model mite (Thomas, 2000; Heethoff longisetosus, originally collected in Thailand, was et al., 2007a; Barnett and Thomas, 2011) and is the second species proposed, and Aoki (1965) pro- the oribatid mite most studied under laboratory vided a table of