The presence of a mycangium in European Sinodendron cylindricum (Coleoptera: Lucanidae) and the associated yeast symbionts.

Abstract

Part of the exoskeleton of some wood-inhabiting insects is modified to form a mycangium, which is a specialized organ used to convey fungal spores or yeasts to their offspring. Although most stag beetles (Coleoptera: Lucanidae) are known to have female-specific mycangia and associated yeast symbionts, the evolutionary origin of the mycangium in this group remains unresolved. Here, we report the presence of a mycangium and associated yeast symbionts in the European horned stag beetle Sinodendron cylindricum (L.), which belongs to an ancestral clade of the Lucanidae. The mycangium of S. cylindricum is shown to be female-specific and have the same developmental origin as that of other stag beetles. A total of five yeast strains were isolated from adult mycangia and larval gut of S. cylindricum. Of these, we suggest that SICYAM1 is an undescribed yeast with taxonomic novelty, and have identified SICYLG3 as the xylose-fermenting yeast Scheffersomyces insectosa using nuclear ribosomal RNA and ITS sequences. The remaining three yeast strains, SICYAM2, SICYLG1, and SICYLG2, were assigned to the genus Sugiyamaella. Yeast density in the adult mycangium was lower than that of the more evolutionarily advanced stag beetles, the European Lucanus cervus (L.) and Dorcus parallelipipedus (L.), which were also examined in this study. No living yeasts were isolated from the adult guts. However, a third instar larva of S. cylindricum harbored 104–106 living yeasts in each gut region, which suggests that gut yeasts play an important role in these wood-feeding larvae.