Se trata de muestrear ácaros de las plumas de aves passeriformes para poder caracterizar las especies de ácaros con técnicas moleculares.

Our first aim is to translate current knowledge on the taxonomy of feather mites of European passerine birds into a barcoding dictionary, and to test its robustness to identify species. Second, our aim is to retrieve barcoding sequences from hundreds of thousands of individual feather mites to describe the relative abundance of each feather mite species living in each of 60 passerine bird species. Also, the same approach will be used at the bird individual level. Third, we will cross this information with a huge database (90,000 individual birds) on the abundance of feather mites in these 60 species that have been collected during the last 15 years by the research team of the project and other Spanish researchers. With that information, we will test which individual bird traits, species behavioural, morphological and ecological traits, as well as feather mite species identities and traits are behind the huge difference on feather mite abundance among individuals within and among bird species.