Water mites are a dominant feature of the fauna of all freshwater ecosystems. Over 400 species in 87 genera and 22 families have been recorded in Australia. This book consists of illustrated keys to each family and genus. There are sections on cladistic analysis and classification, biogeographic affinities of the Australian fauna, general biology and morphology.

Although the ancestral home of chelicerates was the sea, the vast majority of modern species live on land. Most students of spiders and mites also restrict themselves to terrestrial habitats. However, a surprising number of mites (Arachnida: Acari) have returned to a watery existence. Approximately 7000 species from the Mesostigmata, Astigmata, Oribatida, and especially the Prostigmata, now live in marine and freshwater habitats. In Aquatic Mites, a dozen chapters explore the distribution, ecology, behavior, genetics, and evolution of the most diverse of these astonishing arachnids. The results of these studies raise as many interesting questions as they answer, and should provoke more investigations of the biology of freshwater and marine Acari.

Freshwater invertebrates identification guide for both professionals and non-professionals. Contains a key to all the macroinvertebrate groups and photographs of live specimens.

This handbook is the first comprehensive guide to identifying Australian water bugs. It provides an overview on all 15 families, 17 subfamilies, and 55 genera known to occur on mainland Australia, Tasmania and nearby islands. Illustrated keys, featuring a minimum of technical language, are offered to assist with the identification of adult water bugs.

Water bugs are familiar insects in aquatic habitats throughout the World. They belong to the order Hemiptera, the largest insect order with incomplete metamorphosis. There are basically two kinds: (1) the semiaquatic bugs (Gerromorpha) which live upon the water surface, and (2) the true water bugs (Nepomorpha) which live beneath the water surface. Water bugs are found in a wide variety of natural habitats from small, temporary pools to larger ponds and lakes, from small streams to rivers, and from inland freshwater bodies to coastal mangroves, tidal pools of coral reefs, and the surface of the ocean. Water bugs are chiefly predators or scavengers, feeding on any prey they can master, from tiny crustaceans and insects to tadpoles and small fish. They play a major role in aquatic ecosystems and may serve as indicators of the biological quality of aquatic habitats. They are chiefly beneficial to man since many species prey on mosquitoes and are themselves preyed upon by fish. Because of their diverse lifestyles and because they are easily observed in their natural habitats, water bugs are excellent model organisms in evolutionary biology, ecology, and conservation biology. This handbook is the first comprehensive guide facilitating the identification of Australian water bugs. It provides an overview on all 15 families, 17 subfamilies, and 55 genera known to occur on mainland Australia, Tasmania and nearby islands. Illustrated keys, featuring a minimum of technical language, are offered to assist with the identification of adult water bugs. For each genus, the handbook includes a description of the characters used to identify the genus and to separate the genus from similar genera, an illustration to show overall appearance (“habitus”) of a representative species, an illustrated key to species recorded from Australia, overview of the biology of the genus, and a map showing the locations where the genus has been found in Australia.

This book offers a comprehensive study of species- and genus-level diversity and chorology of the global freshwater fauna to date. It gives a state of the art assessment of the diversity and distribution of Metazoa in the continental waters of the world.

More than 40,000 species of mites have been described, and up to 1 million may exist on earth. These tiny arachnids play many ecological roles including acting as vectors of disease, vital players in soil formation, and important agents of biological control. But despite the grand diversity of mites, even trained biologists are often unaware of their significance. Mites: Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour (2nd edition) aims to fill the gaps in our understanding of these intriguing creatures. It surveys life cycles, feeding behaviour, reproductive biology and host-associations of mites without requiring prior knowledge of their morphology or taxonomy. Topics covered include evolution of mites and other arachnids, mites in soil and water, mites on plants and animals, sperm transfer and reproduction, mites and human disease, and mites as models for ecological and evolutionary theories.