A geographic distribution database of Mononychellus mites (Acari, Tetranychidae) on cassava (Manihot esculenta)

Abstract The genus Mononychellus is represented by 28 herbivorous mites. Some of them are notorious pests of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), a primary food crop in the tropics. With the exception of Mononychellus tanajoa (Bondar), their geographic distribution is not widely known. This article therefore reports observational and specimen-based occurrence data of Mononychellus species associated with cassava. The dataset consists of 1,513 distribution records documented by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) between 1975 and 2012. The specimens are held at CIAT’s Arthropod Reference Collection (CIATARC). Most of the records are from the genus’ native range in South America and were documented between 1980 and 2000. Approximately 61% of the records belong to M. tanajoa, 25% to M. caribbeanae (McGregor), 10% to M. mcgregori (Flechtmann and Baker) and 2% to M. planki (McGregor). The complete dataset is available in Darwin Core Archive format via the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).


Data published through GBIF
http://www.gbif.org/dataset/785cf038-7b79-4c2f-9e9e-eb940fcd4c0c Design description: The purpose of this dataset is to significantly increase the geographic distribution data publicly available for the genus Mononychellus. This genus includes several species of herbivorous mites that are major pests of cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz), most notoriously Mononychellus tanajoa (Bondar). We report 1,513 distribution records of the genus, documented by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) between 1975 and 2012. Most of the records (53%) correspond to specimens preserved at CIAT's Arthropod Reference Collection (CIATARC). Prior to this contribution, only 30 distribution records of Mononychellus were accessible through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) data portal (accessed 1/13/2014). Accordingly, the CIATARC Mononychellus dataset should facilitate a much better understanding of the genus' geographic association with cassava.

Taxonomic coverage
General taxonomic coverage description: Most records were identified to species level (98%) with the help of expert input (José María Guerrero, Pilar Hernandez

Spatial coverage
General spatial coverage: The Mononychellus specimens and observations of CIATARC are from South America (14 countries) and Central America (Cuba, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Trinidad and Tobago), which represent the 99% of records, with Colombia and Venezuela are the best represented countries, followed by Brazil and Ecuador (Fig. 2). These countries are considered the center of origin of our focal species.

Natural Collections descriptions
Collection name: CIAT Arthropod Reference Collection (CIATARC). Specimen preservation method: Specimens are preserved as microslide preparations in microscope slide boxes within cabinet drawers maintained at 21.0 ± 0.4 C and 47.6 ± 8.6 relative humidity. They are sorted numerically by species and country of origin.

Method step description:
The dataset integrates two data flows: observational records and specimen-based records, identified either to genus or to species. The former were digitized from field diagnostic forms completed by personnel extensively trained in mite identification. These identifications, however, were likely conducted on site without mounting and preserving samples. Alternatively, these observations may correspond to properly-mounted but lost specimens. In either case, our confidence in the identification of observational records is high to the genus level, but moderate to the species level. On the other hand, specimen-based records belong to verifiable samples properly-preserved at CIATARC following the guidelines of Krantz (1978). Unique accession numbers were assigned to all records. All biodiversity data available (i.e. specimen, species identification, name of determiner, sex, biological phase, locality, date, habitat, host, collector and observations) was digitized in a Microsoft Excel 2010 spreadsheet adopting the Darwin Core Archive format v1.2 (Wieczorek et al. 2012). We updated locality fields (e.g., district, municipality) using the most current names and classifications of administrative divisions used by each country (e.g. http://www.dane.gov. co/Divipola/ for Colombia, http://www.inec.gob.ec/estadisticas/?option=com_ content&view=article&id=80 for Ecuador, etc. [accessed 2013/11/14]). Based on their locality names, we then geocoded the records using Google Maps (https:// maps.google.com/), GeoNames (http://www.geonames.org/) or Amézquita et al. (2013). GPS coordinates were converted to decimal degrees. The dataset with metadata was uploaded to the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) of the Colombia node of Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (http://www.gbif.org/ dataset/785cf038-7b79-4c2f-9e9e-eb940fcd4c0c).
Their locations were systematically selected based on their climatic homology to M. tanajoa-affected areas in Africa (Bellotti et al. 1987, CIAT 1993. 3) Records from other sources; including field inspections and collections conducted during routine farm visits by CIAT personnel, and from specimens submitted to CIATARC by fellow institutions and researchers (Bellotti et al. 2000;CIAT 2001CIAT , 2002CIAT , 20036%, 2000-2012.
The sampling process typically involved scouting cassava fields for infested plants, identified by speckling of their terminal leaves, followed by a close-up inspection for green mites using a 10× magnifying glass. To collect specimens, mites were then brushed off from leaves into collection vials containing a lactophenol solution (Krantz 1978) and maintained in ice chests until reaching the laboratory for proper mounting and identification (Bellotti et al. 1987, CIAT 1993. Quality control description: Record validation and cleaning was incorporated at several steps of the documentation process, following guideless by Chapman (2005 a,b). The scientific names on labels were checked with a taxonomic thesaurus developed by AAV. This thesaurus compiled all known synonyms and spelling variants of the scientific names used for our focal species. We assigned scientific names in accordance to current taxonomy trends. Geographic coordinates were verified using the "Check Coordinates" function in DIVA-GIS (Hitmans et al. 2001). For this last step, we relied on the Global Administrative Unit Layers (GAUL) shape file developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO, http://www.fao.org/geonetwork/srv/en/metadata.show?id=12691, [accessed 2013/11/14]).

Dataset description
Object name: Darwin Core Archive Mononychellus distribution: data of the CIAT Arthropod Reference Collection of International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT). Character encoding: UTF-8.