Increasing global mean surface temperatures from climate change will coincide with longer and more frequent short-term, extreme warming events. Because of this, habitats like boreal forests are predicted to have new temperature regimes. Boreal forest soils contain a diverse array of microarthropods and nematodes, which include the main soil predators, mesostigmatic mites (Acari: Parasitiformes: Mesostigmata). Although extensive research exists on how climate warming affects oribatid mite and collembolan communities, fewer studies have examined how warming effects Mesostigmata communities. We tested the effect of short-term (three months), intensive warming (+8 °C) on Mesostigmata communities from the boreal forest using experimental mesocosms containing forest-floor material. We collected moss mats and underlying forest floor organic material from a boreal forest and incubated them within individual mesocosms at 12 °C and 20 °C for three months, where 12 °C represented the long-term average growing season temperature and 20 °C corresponds to the potential extreme surface temperature from climate warming for the region. We enumerated all extracted microarthropods and nematodes, and identified all Mesostigmata adults to the species-level. In total, we counted 24,080 nematode individuals, and 19,582 total microarthropod individuals, of which 3349 individuals (1899 adults and 1450 juveniles) were mesostigmatic mites, consisting of 14 species. Mesostigmatic juvenile and adult abundances, along with adult community-level body mass were higher under warming, which lead to a shift in community composition. Changes to Mesostigmata communities were driven by the greater abundances of parthenogenetic species, primarily Veigaia mitis (Berlese), under warming—a response that has been shown in oribatid mite communities, but not mesostigmatic communities, before. Overall, we found that warming shifted mesostigmatic mite communities in the boreal forest, which has wide ranging implications for the soil food web.

气候变化引起的全球平均地表温度升高将与更长、更频繁的短期极端变暖事件同时发生。因此，预计像北方森林这样的栖息地将具有新的温度状态。北方森林土壤含有多种微节肢动物和线虫，其中包括主要的土壤捕食者，中叶螨（Acari：Parasitiformes：Mesostigmata）。尽管对气候变暖如何影响 oribatid mite 和 collembolan 群落进行了广泛的研究，但很少有研究探讨变暖如何影响 Mesostigmata 群落。我们使用包含森林地面材料的实验性中层环境测试了短期（三个月）、强烈变暖（+8 °C）对来自北方森林的中层序群落的影响。我们从北方森林中收集了苔藓垫和下面的林地有机物，并在各个中观温度下分别于12°C和20°C孵育了三个月，其中12°C代表长期平均生长季节温度，而20°C代表到该地区气候变暖导致的潜在极端表面温度。我们列举了所有提取的微节肢动物和线虫，并将所有 Mesostigmata 成虫鉴定到物种水平。我们总共统计了 24,080 只线虫个体和 19,582 只微节肢动物个体，其中 3349 只个体（1899 只成虫和 1450 只幼虫）是中柱螨，由 14 种组成。在变暖的情况下，中间柱头的幼鱼和成虫丰度以及成年群落水平的体重更高，这导致群落组成发生变化。Veigaia mitis (Berlese)，在变暖条件下——以前在 oribatid 螨群落中已经显示出这种反应，但在中间柱头群落中没有。总的来说，我们发现变暖改变了北方森林中的中柱螨群落，这对土壤食物网具有广泛的影响。