Water mites of the genus Lebertia Neuman, 1880 (Acari, Hydrachnidia, Lebertiidae) from Turkey, with the description of one new species

Abstract A list of species of the water mitegenus Lebertia Neuman, 1880 known from Turkey is provided, based on bibliographical data and results from recent field work, mainly in the Southwestern part of the country. We describe one new species, Lebertia martini sp. n. and report new 28 locality records from 6 provinces for the three previously known species.


Introduction
Water mites of the family Lebertiidae reach their maximum diversity in the Holarctic region, but isolated species have been recorded in several parts of South Asia, Africa and South America (Gerecke 2009). The genus Lebertia is the most species-rich member of the family. Lebertia species are found most frequently, and with the highest diversity, in springs and streams of temperate or boreal regions (Gerecke 2009).
Compared with intrageneric variation in other water mite genera, most Lebertia species are highly uniform in the shape of coxae, legs and mouth parts. Characters useful for discrimination of species and subgenera are mainly integument structures, as well as details in setation and shape of legs and palps (Di Sabatino et al. 2010).
The genus Lebertia is divided into 5 subgenera: Eolebertia, Mixolebertia, Pilolebertia, Brentalebertia and Lebertia s. str. (Gerecke 2009). So far, representatives of all subgenera except for Brentalebertia and Eolebertia have been found in Turkey. The water mite fauna of Turkey includes 240 species in 55 genera and 23 families, with 7 species of Lebertia known up to now (Erman et al. 2010, Bursalı et al. 2011). Here we report results of further field work, mostly done in SW Turkey, resulting in the detection of one new species (described below) and new locality records of three Lebertia species previously known from other parts of the country.

Lebertia
Description. Both sexes. Integument dorsally and ventrally lineated. Dorsum with four paired median plates (equal in size in the both sexes) Dc-1-4, Dc-1 largest, triangular in shape and bearing the postocular setae, Dc-3 oval, Dc-2 and -4 much smaller and circular (Fig. 1a). Dorsoglandularia relatively large. Leg setation inconspicuous, no swimming setae present; number of ventral setae on IV-L-5-6: 7 and 3 respectively. Excretory pore unsclerotized. Palp relatively small and very stout; P-3 with tips of distal setae not extending beyond tip of P-5, dorsal mediodistal seta distanced from segment edge, paired dorsal setae located close together far proximally near segment base.
Etymology. The species name is given in honour of the water mite specialist Dr Peter Martin (Kiel).

Conclusion
Examination of Lebertia material collected mainly from southwestern Turkey revealed the presence of a very distinct new species, as well as the new provincial records (28 locality from 6 province) for the three previously recorded species: Lebertia (Lebertia) castalia Viets, 1925 from Antalya Province; Lebertia (Pilolebertia) porosa Thor, 1900 from Antalya, Burdur and Konya provinces; Lebertia (Lebertia) glabra Thor, 1897 from Afyonkarahisar, Antalya, Burdur, Denizli, Isparta and Konya provinces. The faunistic investigation of the genus Lebertia in Turkey is still restricted to limited geographical regions, leaving big gaps in our knowledge of diversity of this genus in the regions of Marmara, Trakya, Eastern and Western Black Sea coast. Our results suggest that in the course of further investigations extended to cover all regions many more species will be founds.