The free-living acarids include species from all of the orders and suborders except Ixodida (ticks). The beetle mites (Oribatida) are largely fungal feeders that are extremely numerous in the surface layers of soil. It has been estimated that as many as six million members of one species can occur in one acre of pasture soil.

Some families of free-living mites have specialized styletlike feeding organs (chelicerae), which can pierce plant cells and are used to suck out their contents. Feeding by members of the family Eriophyidae (Prostigmata), for example, causes the formation of galls, dwarfing of shoots, and malformation of fruits and leaves (witches’-broom). The family Tetranychidae (Prostigmata) contains the spider mites, which are foliage feeders. Several species capable of producing silk can spin a light web over plant leaves.

The families Acaridae and Glycyphagidae (Astigmata), pests of stored grain and cereal products, have blunt, toothed chelicerae that enable them to scrape and gouge their food material. Some species of these two families frequently increase to tremendous numbers in foodstuffs, causing “grocers’ itch” or “copra itch” in humans. There are many free-living predatory mites that live in soil, humus, other organic matter, or water, and prey on small arthropods, their eggs, and other small invertebrates.

Many free-living mites utilize insects or other arthropods to disperse themselves, a nonparasitic association known as phoresy. Adults of the genus Dinogamasus (Laelapidae), for example, live in a special mite pouch on an abdominal segment of certain carpenter bees.

Parasitic species are known in all acarid groups except Opilioacariformes, Holothyrina, and Oribatida. The majority are external parasites, including those most important to humans and domesticated animals. A few species are internal parasites of animals. One ecological group contains families found only on the skin surface or feathers of the host. Psoroptidae (Astigmata), or scab mites, for example, attack the skin surface of mammals and feed on skin scales. Their continuous abrasion of the skin causes a lesion over which a protective scab eventually forms. A second ecological group contains several families of mites that burrow into skin, hair follicles, or quills of the host and feed on fatty secretions, lymph material, or, occasionally, blood. The families Sarcoptidae (Astigmata) and Psorergatidae (Prostigmata), for example, contain species that burrow just beneath the skin of a mammalian host, causing mange or itch. A third ecological group contains species that pierce the skin and suck up tissue fluid or blood without actually invading the tissues. These species may spend either short or long intervals on the host.

The larvae of Trombiculidae (Prostigmata), the chiggers, parasitize many vertebrates and a few invertebrates and feed on host tissues (chigger nymphs and adults, however, are free-living and predatory). Species of Dermanyssidae, Macronyssidae, and many Laelapidae (Mesostigmata) feed on blood or tissue secretions of mammals, birds, and reptiles. Some species, which spend much of their time off the host and in the nest, frequently are referred to as nest parasites, or nidicolous species. The protonymph of one species of Macronyssidae, found in the mouth of a long-nosed bat, causes destruction of tissues; and a species of Spinturnicidae (Mesostigmata) is found in the anal opening of certain species of cave-dwelling bats. Most members of the tick families Argasidae and Ixodidae (Ixodida) are obligate blood-sucking parasites of vertebrates, while most Argasidae nymphs and adults feed on the host for only a few minutes. Ixodidae in most stages in the life cycle remain attached to the host for several days.

A few families of mites are found in additional parasitic associations with vertebrates. Rhinonyssidae, Entonyssidae, and Halarchnidae (Mesostigmata), for example, are respiratory parasites of birds, snakes, and mammals, respectively. Several families of mites have established a parasitic relationship with invertebrates. Larvae of Trombidiidae and Erythraeidae (Prostigmata) and other families, for example, are parasitic on insects but are free living in later stages. In contrast, in the aquatic family Unionicolidae (Prostigmata), nymphs and adults parasitize mollusks and sponges, and larvae are free-living.