Abstract
Lichens in general and members of the genus Cladonia in particular are known for their repertoire of chemical substances. These substances have been attributed various roles, including a role in the defence against herbivores. Unsurprisingly, Cladonia species share habitats with many small invertebrates, like mites. Mites have been suggested to regularly feed on lichens, with potential detrimental effects for the lichen. Here we tested the feeding preferences of two oribatid mite species (Carabodes areolatus and C. marginatus) for three members of the lichen genus Cladonia. Cladonia coniocraea, C. norvegica and C. rubrotincta have similar morphology, ecology, and they regularly share their habitats with the selected mites, but produce different chemical compounds (barbatic acid in Cladonia norvegica, barbatic and rhodocladonic acids in Cladonia rubrotincta, and the fumarprotocetraric acid complex in Cladonia coniocraea), some of which are considered to have antiherbivore properties. Our experiments conducted over a period of 14 days revealed that none of the three lichens was rejected as a food source. When given a choice between two different lichens, mites prefer C. rubrotincta over C. norvegica, but feed to a similar extent on C. coniocraea and C. rubrotincta. In experiments only with C. rubrotincta, which produces the red chemical compound rhodocladonic acid, a substance with suggested antiherbivore activity, mites surprisingly seem to prefer red-pigmented over unpigmented tissue.
Similar content being viewed by others
Differential interactions of Rickettsia species with tick microbiota in Rh. sanguineus and Rh. turanicus
Multiple factors influence claw characteristics in oribatid mites (Acari)
Bacterial microbiome in tropical lichens and the effect of the isolation method on culturable lichen-derived actinobacteria
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Maria Liebmann-Reindl for optimization of food choice tests, Einar Timdal for helping with collection of lichen material and for providing the photo of Cladonia norvegica. The authors acknowledge the financial support by the University of Graz.
Funding
This study was funded by projects N. 96p3 and 98p2 of the AKTION Austria – Czech Republic Initiative and by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic (DKRVO 2024–2028/3.II.c, National Museum, 00023272). Jana Steinová has been supported by the Charles University Research Centre program No. UNCE/24/SCI/006.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Information. (download PDF )
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vtípilová, V., Pfingstl, T., Ghlimová, H. et al. Oribatid mites like lichens—feeding preferences among three Cladonia species with different chemistry.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-54891-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-54891-5
Keywords
- Acari
- Fumarprotocetraric acid
- Rhodocladonic acid
- Feeding tests
Carabodes
Source: Ecology - nature.com
