Community of chigger mites on surface of Rattus flavipectus in 19 counties of Yunnan Province,China

In order to investigate the community structure of chigger mites on surface of Rattus flavipectus,together with the distribution of species-abundance and the relation of species-plots,19 counties in Yunnan Province of China were selected as investigation spots.Chigger mite specimens were collected from the body surface of each rodent host.The chigger mite was identified into species under a microscope.A1l the chigger mites on Rattus flavipectus were defined as one community unit.Richness(S),Shannon-Wiener's diversity index(H),evenness(J),and dominance index(C) were adopted to measure the community structure of chigger mites.Totally 4242 chigger mites were collected from the body surface of 1503 Rattus flavipectus.,and were identified as 84 species belonging to 16 genera in 3 families.Of 84 chigger mite species,12 main chigger mite species accounts for 90.74% of the total specimens.The distribution of species-abundance showed that with the increasing number of individuals chigger,chigger mite species decreased.The species-plot relationship showed that chigger mite species increase with the growth of mouse plots(samples),and it had reached the stable stage with the present samples.It is concluded that the species of chigger mites on Rattus flavipectus were extremely rich,and most of them were rare species without prominent dominant species.