About the Acari AToL

AcariAToL is a project submitted to the National Science Foundation under the “Assembling the Tree Of Life” initiative, which aims to reconstruct the evolutionary history of all organisms. Our goal is to construct a large-scale phylogenetic analysis of the group Acari.

Acari (ticks and mites) are an ancient mega-diverse group that displays a bewildering array of life histories and that occupies a stunning array of habitats. As a result various groups of mites have great potential as models for studies on many current topics in evolutionary biology, paleontology, molecular biology, biological control, etc. Unfortunately, such research is often stymied by the lack of baseline knowledge on evolutionary relationships among mite lineages. Lack of stable classifications combined with enormous diversity has too often overwhelmed non-acarologists (and many mite specialists as well). Even the most basic questions of mite monophyly and their phylogenetic position within Chelicerata are debated and to this point insufficiently tested. The major goals of this project are to address these issues by producing an unprecedented set of morphological and molecular data suitable to (1) test mite monophyly, (2) determine the placement of mites within chelicerates, and (3) establish higher order relationships within Acari.