Three new species of eriophyoid mites (Acari, Eriophyoidea) from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China

Abstract Three new species of eriophyoid mites from Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, China, are described and illustrated. They are Paracolomerus gonglius sp. n. and Phyllocoptruta beggerianae sp. n. collected on Rosa beggeriana Schrenk ex Fisch. & C. A. Mey. (Rosaceae), and Rhyncaphytoptus fuyuniensis sp. n. collected on Cotoneaster ignavus E. L. Wolf (Rosaceae). All eriophyoid mites described here are vagrants on the undersurface of leaves and any apparent damage was not observed.


Introduction
Eriophyoid mites (Acari: Eriophyoidea) have been recognized as important pests in agriculture and forestry all over the world . Their stylets are involved in piercing plant cells, injecting saliva into them and sucking cell sap (de Lillo et al. 2002). The saliva causes cytological, biochemical and physiological changes in the pierced plants Monfreda 2004, Petanović andKielkiewicz 2010a).
Eriophyoid mites induce plant malformations as galls, complex symptoms or vector pathogens disturbing the normal growth of plants (Petanović and Kielkiewicz 2010b). This is the case of Colomerus vitis (Pagenstecher), Aceria pallida Keifer and Tegolophus zizyphagus (Keifer) which induce erinea, galls or leaf edge curls and cause economic losses to grape, matrimony vine and jujube, respectively, in Xinjiang (Lu and Mao 1990, Zang 1998, Yang et al. 2012. However, about half eriophyoid mite species are vagrants on the surface of leaves and do not cause any apparent damage (Huang 2008, Skoracka et al. 2010, Petanović and Kielkiewicz 2010b. These mites, occurring in a large amount, may cause non-distortive changes and affect the normal growth of the plants (Oldfield 1996). Usually eriophyoids are tiny in size and hard to see with unaided eyes. Sometimes their symptoms can be confused with those due to viruses, nutrient deficiency and physiological disorders (Van Leeuwen et al. 2010). Therefore, it is necessary to study the systematic account of Eriophyoidea for having a further contribute in better understanding their significance in Agriculture. Kuang (1995) first explored and reported the eriophyoid mite fauna in Xinjiang. After that, a number of field surveys were conducted in the same area and further 31 species were reported so far. Out of 31 species, 1 species belongs to the family Phytoptidae, 2 species belong to the family Diptilomiopidae and 28 species belong to the family Eriophyidae (Table 1). The fact that more than 1000 species have been recognized from China (personal data of X.-F. Xue) suggests that many more areas need to be explored more carefully. For this purpose eriophyoid mites were collected by Ji-Wei Li from Tianshan Mountains, Altai Mountains, Farmlands and Gurbantunggut Desert of Xinjinag in 2013 and 2014.
In the present study, we describe 2 new species of the genera Paracolomerus and Phyllocoptruta collected on Rosa beggeriana (Fig. 1) and one new species of the genus Rhyncaphytoptus collected on Cotoneaster ignavus (Fig. 1), all from Xinjiang. Also, this is the first description of the genus Paracolomerus from Rosaceae.

Family
This species is similar to P. fopingacer Xue, Song & Hong, 2011, from Acer sp. L. (Aceraceae), but can be differentiated from the latter by median line almost complete, with 5-6 short lines on the lateral sides of prodorsal shield (median line present for half, without short lines on the lateral sides in P. fopingacer), frontal shield lobe absent (frontal shield lobe acuminate in P. fopingacer) and 5-rayed empodium (6-rayed empodium in P. fopingacer).
Etymology. The specific designation beggerianae comes from the epithet of the host plant, beggeriana.