TY - JOUR JF - Acarologia T1 - Contribution to the ecological study of house dust mites VL - 15 IS - 3 SP - 461 EP - 476 PY - 1973 SN - 0044-586X SN - 2107-7207 PB - Les Amis d'Acarologia AU - Gridelet, D. AU - Lebrun, P. UR - https://www1.montpellier.inrae.fr/CBGP/acarologia/article.php?id=3240 DA - 1974-03-22 KW - Acari KW - house dust KW - population density KW - measurement KW - technique evaluation KW - ecology AB - Contribution à l’étude écologique des acariens des poussières de maisons. - The present investigation verifies that there is yet no appropriate technique that counts absolute numbers of pulvicole populations. Certain methods, although very precise, provoke Joss of individuals during the course of many manipulations. Others, which are less selective have poor efficiency and are not suitable for analysis in series. There is a need, therefore, to develop a technique which would take into account some vital activity of domestic Acari, such as food baits, light traps, chemical attractants, etc. Such m ~thod of extraction will allow us not only to provide the accurate faunal composition but also to define in a better way the dynamic aspect of the interrelationships between organisms and biotopes. These questions are of prime importance in studying the problems of proliferation of allergen species and their population control. By an integral count in which the error is not more than 10 %, we have detected the relative importance of temporal factors and mainly spatial factors for all the species collected. We were able to classify the various species under the heads ’fundamental’, numerically dominant, accessory or accidenta! and their presence is justified by various factors connected with the domestic activities (food, desquamation, flowers, domestic animals, etc.) The correlation coefficient tests have shown co-occurrence of Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Cheyletus sp. It remains now to estimate the efficiency of these predators and their degree of dependence upon their prey. Moreover, as our analyses of indices of specific diversity show a certain stability of the pulvicole biocenose, it would be interesting to know if this stability remains the same for different types of habitations (rural or urban, dry or humid .. . ). In this way it would be possible to classify the habitats and to characterise the pulvicole communities in relation with the type of contaminated dust.Studies were made on methods of estimating the numbers of mites present in house dust. Several species were found in samples collected in Belgium. ER -