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Fungal symbionts in three exotic ambrosia beetles, Xylosandrus amputatus, Xyleborinus andrewesi, and Dryoxylon onoharaense (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae: Xyleborini) in Florida

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Abstract

In nearly every forest habitat, ambrosia beetles (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae, Platypodinae) plant and maintain symbiotic fungus gardens inside dead or dying trees. Some non-native ambrosia beetles aggressively attack live trees and damage tree crops, lumber, and native woody plant taxa by introducing ambrosia fungi, some of which are plant pathogens. Most established exotic species, however, do not cause any economic damage, and consequently are little studied. To determine the specificity and diversity of ambrosia symbionts in under-studied non-native beetles in Florida, fungi were isolated from three species: Xylosandrus amputatus, Xyleborinus andrewesi, and Dryoxylon onoharaense. Two of the beetles sampled each yielded a fungal species isolated with 100 % frequency: X. amputatus: Ambrosiella beaveri or A. nakashimae, and X. andrewesi: Raffaelea sp. nov. nr. canadensis. Both of these symbionts have been isolated previously from closely related ambrosia beetles, supporting the hypothesis that some beetles can carry monocultures of fungi, but the fungi may not be specific to single beetle species. No consistent fungi were isolated from Dryoxylon onoharaense, raising questions about whether or not it truly carries its own symbionts. These results are now being used to test hypotheses and models explaining the evolution of pathogenicity within ambrosia fungi and invasion ability within exotic beetle-fungus complexes.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Wayne Montgomery, Chris Gibbard and Lukasz Stelinski for aid in beetle collections.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Entomology and Nematology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Craig Bateman & Jiri Hulcr

  2. USDA-ARS, Subtropical Horticulture Research Station, Miami, FL, 33158, USA

    Paul E. Kendra

  3. Forest Health Protection, USDA Forest Service, Washington, DC, 20250, USA

    Robert Rabaglia

  4. School of Forest Resources and Conservation, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, 32611, USA

    Jiri Hulcr

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  1. Craig Bateman
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Correspondence to Jiri Hulcr.

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Competing interests

RR works for the U.S. Forest service which partly funded this study. CCB, PEK, JH declare no competing interests.

Funding

This study was funded by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service (FS)-SRS Coop agreement 14-CA-11,330,130-032, USDA-FS-FHP Coop agreement 12-CA-11,420,004-042, USDA Farm Bill agreement 14–8130-0377-CA, National Science Foundation DEB 1256968, and a University of Florida Opportunity Seed fund.

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Bateman, C., Kendra, P.E., Rabaglia, R. et al. Fungal symbionts in three exotic ambrosia beetles, Xylosandrus amputatus, Xyleborinus andrewesi, and Dryoxylon onoharaense (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae: Xyleborini) in Florida. Symbiosis 66, 141–148 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13199-015-0353-z

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