House dust mites accompany humans on their air travel to enter new populations and expand their range, finds a research. They cling onto airline passengers' clothes, skin, food and baggage.
"What people might not realise when they board a plane is that they can share the flight with a myriad of microscopic passengers - including house dust mites - that take advantage of humanity's technological progress for their own benefit," explained Pavel Klimov from University of Michigan.
House dust mites are blamed for causing allergic reactions in more than 65 million people worldwide and thrive in the mattresses, sofas and carpets of even the cleanest homes.
"House dust mites can easily travel on an airline passenger's clothes, skin, food and baggage," Klimov pointed out.
The researchers arrived at this conclusion as they found genetic connections between house dust mite numbers in the US and Pakistan.
The genetic mutations shared by mites in the US and Pakistan demonstrate the eight-legged creatures' propensity for intercontinental dispersal, the researchers explained.
"What we found suggests that mite populations are indeed linked through migration across continents, though geographic differences still can be detected," Rubaba Hamid, a visiting scholar at University of Michigan, noted.
Every time a mite successfully migrates to a new place, it brings its own genetic signature that can be detected in the resident population a long time after the migration event.
The study focused on two medically important mite species, the American and European house dust mite.
The study appeared online in the journal PLOS ONE.
