Fig. 1

Comparative genomics, phylogenesis, and evolution of the Acari species. a. The phylogenomic tree of mites based on predicted protein data with divergence time estimates) and. Genomic data from six species of Acari were included: two tick species (Ixodes scapularis and Rhipicephalus microplus, order Ixodida), two predatory mite species (Metaseiulus occidentalis and Neoseiulus cucmeris, order Mesostigmata), and two acariform mites (Tetranychus urticae, order Trombidiformes and Sarcoptes scabiei, order Sarcoptiformes). Two non-mite arachinids were also included: Stegodyphus mimosarum (Scorpiones Mesobuthus martensii (Araneae); full genomic data for other orders of Arachnida not available. Limulus polyphemus (Xiphosura) was used as an outgroup taxon, with the possible Limulus polyphemus-arachnida split 490 (468–520) MYA as one fossil calibration. b. Comparison of the gene families of five sequenced species within the Subclass Acari. A total of 2141 gene families were shared by all the species N. cucumeris (23.24% of 9214), M. occidentalis (25.07% of 8539), I. scapularis (28.94% of 7398), R. microplus (42.42% of 5047) and T. urticae (35.27% of 6070). c. The genome microsynteny between two predatory mites: N. cucumeris and M. occidentalis. 142 N. cucumeris scaffolds (> 10 kb) had strong co-linearity with 224 M. occidentalis scaffolds, spanning 137.85 Mb and 123.58 Mb of the N. cucumeris and M. occidentalis genomes, respectively