Abstract
Ficus carica plantations in Japan were first reported to be infested by an ambrosia beetle species, identified as Euwallacea interjectus, in 1996. The purpose of this study was to determine the symbiotic fungi of female adults of E. interjectus emerging from F. carica trees infected with fig wilt disease (FWD). Dispersal adults (51 females) of E. interjectus, which were collected from logs of an infested fig tree in Hiroshima Prefecture, Western Japan, were separated into three respective body parts (head, thorax, and abdomen) and used for fungal isolation. Isolated fungi were identified based on the morphological characteristics and DNA sequence data. Over 13 species of associated fungi were detected, of which a specific fungus, Fusarium kuroshium, was dominant in female head (including oral mycangia). The plant-pathogenic fungus of FWD, Ceratocystis ficicola, was not observed within any body parts of E. interjectus. We further discussed the relationship among E. interjectus and its associated fungi in fig tree.
Highlights
Ambrosia beetles are wood-inhabiting insects which cultivate fungi as a source of nutrition typically in dead, but occasionally in healthy, woody hosts (Hulcr and Stelinski, 2017)
“symbiotic” relationship is considered as a type of close and long-term biological interaction between ambrosia beetle and its fungal associates
The fungal associates should be stored in its mycangia before release into the galleries and significantly dominant among fungal isolates from the mycangia
Summary
Ambrosia beetles are wood-inhabiting insects which cultivate fungi as a source of nutrition typically in dead, but occasionally in healthy, woody hosts (Hulcr and Stelinski, 2017). Most of the ambrosia beetles store and transport their fungal associates to and from their natal galleries in specialized transporting organs called mycangia (singular form: mycangium) (Batra, 1963; Hulcr and Cognato, 2010; Joseph and Keyhani, 2021) or mycetangia (singular form: mycetangium) (Vega and Biedermann, 2020). Many ambrosia beetles and their associated fungi are ecologically constrained to the dying or dead trees and usually remain harmless even after establishment in non-native regions (Cognato et al, 2015). Some invasive symbioses have been found to shift from non-pathogenic saprotrophy in native ranges to prolific tree killing in invaded ranges and cause significant damage (Hulcr and Dunn, 2011; Ranger et al, 2015; Hulcr et al, 2017; Carrillo et al, 2019; Joseph and Keyhani, 2021)
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