Aceria species associated with Solanaceae worldwide with description of a new species

During the study on the eriophyoid mite fauna of Ajabshir region in East Azerbaijan province (Iran), a new species was found on Lycium ruthenicum Murray (Solanaceae). It was described, named as Aceria ajabshiriensis n. sp. and compared with 18 other Aceria species associated with plants of the family Solanaceae. Aceria ajabshiriensis n. sp. strongly resembles Aceria eucricotes (Nalepa). Aceria ajabshiriensis n. sp. is the third eriophyoid species collected on L. ruthenicum in Iran. A list of Aceria species associated with Solanaceae plants worldwide, their type hosts, type localities, habitats and a key for identification are provided. In addition, a new combination was proposed: Aceria dunaliae (Boczek & Oleczek, 1988) n. comb.


Introduction
The family Solanaceae is one of the largest and economically important families of flowering plants, including fruit, spice, and drug plants representing 8,400 scientific plant names of species (2,678 species names are accepted) within 115 plant genera (The Plant List on-line database 2013). This family includes evolutionarily successful and advanced taxa and shows high level of diversity reflected by the variety of life forms of its members, ranging from ephemeral herbs to large trees. They are cosmopolitan plants found throughout tropical and temperate regions, but with more focus in Australia and Latin America (Majaz Ganaie et al. 2018).
The seventh species from Solanaceae was collected from Lycium ruthenicum Murray in Iran. It is described and illustrated herein and a key to the Aceria species associated with Solanaceae plant species is given in order to assist species identification.

Material and Methods
Plant samples of Russian Box Thorn, L. ruthenicum, were collected in Ajabshir region of East Azerbaijan province (Iran), on July 2016. Eriophyoid mites were recovered from the plant samples by means of a modified washing method developed by Monfreda et al. (2007). The mites were slide mounted according to Baker et al. (1996) with some changes: specimens were directly placed in modified Hoyer's medium without previous clearing and fibers were interposed between slide and coverslip. Mounted specimens were cleared at 90°C for a few minutes. Then, the slides were dried for about four weeks in an oven at 47°C. The terminology and the setal notation in the morphological description of the mite follow mainly Lindquist (1996) and terminology of the internal female genital apparatus follows Chetverikov (2014) and Chetverikov et al. (2014). All morphological measurements were taken by means of a phase contrast microscope Olympus BX53, at 1,000 magnification (oil immersion), according to Amrine and Manson (1996) as modified by de Lillo et al. (2010), and are given in micrometers. Slight clarifications should be added as follows: dorsal semiannuli were counted from the first semiannulus behind the rear margin of the prodorsal shield; ventral semiannuli were counted from the first complete annulus after coxae II; coxigenital semiannuli were counted medially from the coxal region to the anterior margin of the external genitalia and were not included in the ventral semiannuli count. Measurements and means are rounded off to the nearest integer when required except of the minute characters. Measurements refer to the length of the morphological trait unless otherwise specified and are given in micrometers. In the female description, the holotype measurements are followed by range values, in parentheses, of the studied population (i.e. holotype and paratypes) and for males only the range values are given.
The mean values of the paratypes are reported in the cases in which the measurements of the holotype could not be taken, due to the slide mounting position of the specimens and were marked by an asterisk (*) in the description. Line drawings were hand-drawn with a camera lucida according to de Lillo et al. (2010) and the abbreviations labelling schematic drawings follow mainly Amrine et al. (2003). The genus classification follows Amrine et al. (2003)  Gnathosoma projecting obliquely downwards, chelicerae 26 (26-30), palp 28 (26-35), palp coxal setae ep 3.5* (3-3.5), dorsal palp genual setae d 8 (7-10), unbranched.
Other material -Mites preserved in a vial (LR-IEA-RO16T) of Oudemans' fluid (Walter and Krantz, 2009) as extracted from the same sample as the type specimens.
Relation to the host plant -Vagrant; no apparent symptom was observed.
Etymology -This species is named after Ajabshir, the region where it was collected. Differential diagnosis -The new species was compared with 18 Aceria species associated with the plants of family Solanaceae known to date. The new species closely resembles Aceria eucricotes (Nalepa) collected on Lycium europaeum L. from Algeria and, previously, also on L. ruthenicum from Iran (Lotfollahi et al. 2017). Both species have completely smooth prodorsal shields, similar number of empodial rays and body setal length. But these two species differ in number of dorsal semiannuli (39-53 in the new species versus 51-73 in A. eucricotes), number of semiannuli between coxae and genital coverflap (6-8 in the new species versus 3-5 in A. eucricotes). In addition, A. ajabshiriensis n. sp. has a short flexible distally acuminate frontal lobe, while A. eucricotes doesn't have a frontal lobe. Finally, the female genital coverflap of the new species is ornamented with 9-10 longitudinal striae, whereas A. eucricotes has a smooth coverflap.