The mite diversity in the Barbados Cherry was evaluated at the Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, in Recife, Pernambuco State. The samples were done in the germ plasm bank of the plant between May 2001 and March 2002. In each sample eight aleatory branches from each individual of twelve plants were surveyed. From each branch the apical bud and eight leaves from median and basal positions were collected. In the laboratory the mites were collected, mounted in histological laminas for microscopy, and identified. We founded 2.233 mites from 32 species owing to 29 genus and 11 families. From all species 4.5% belonged to the Acaridida, 79.4% to the Actinedida, 6.7% to the Gamasida and 9.4% to the Oribatida Orders. The majority of the collected specimens are phytophagous. The Eriophyidae family represented 59.2% from all mites collected. All sampled specimens owed to genus Floracarus. The Tenuipalpidae family represented 12.5% from all ácaros. The determined species were Brevipalpus californicus (Banks), with 4.7% and Brevipalpus phoenicis (Geijskes) with 7.8%. Among the predaceous mites the phytoseids were more frequent, representing 6.4% from the collected mites, from which 2.8% were identified as Amblyseius aerialis (Muma), 2.1% as Iphiseiodes zuluagai Denmark & Muma and 1.2% as Euseius alatus DeLeon. Among the 32 collected species, 12 are predator mites, six probably are micophagous and only four are phytophagous. These last ones, seemingly do not provoke economic damage indicating that the mites that occur in the Malpighiaceae family may be in equilibrium.
Acari; taxonomy; tropical fruit
