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Gut microbiota in an invasive bark beetle infected by a pathogenic fungus accelerates beetle mortality

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Abstract

Dendroctonus valens, introduced to China from North America, has caused catastrophic mortality of healthy pines and has the potential to disperse into new geographic ranges. The entomopathogen Beauveria bassiana is an environmentally friendly alternative to chemical pesticides, and it is highly lethal to D. valens. Recent studies reported that gut microbiota of insects can suppress or promote infections by B. bassiana. Although D. valens harbors an abundant gut microbiota, whether and how gut microbiota interplay with fungal entomopathogens has not been examined. Nonaxenic D. valens larvae inoculated with B. bassiana conidia died significantly faster than axenic larvae. Significant differences were found between the structures of gut bacterial communities in B. bassiana conidial suspension-inoculated and Tween 80 treated larvae, and the abundance of Erwinia sp. in the former group was significantly higher than the latter one. Reintroduction of Erwinia sp. into axenic D. valens larvae accelerated larval mortality. These observations indicate that the gut bacterial community of an invasive bark beetle is altered by entomopathogenic B. bassiana, which further accelerates beetle mortality.

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Acknowledgements

This project was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program (2017YFD0600101), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31700569, 31000304, 31170616), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2017M622389), and Natural Science Foundation of Anhui province, China (1508085SMC216).

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  1. Letian Xu and Jundan Deng contributed equally to the study.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anhui Provincial Key Laboratory of Microbial Control, School of Forestry and Landscape Architecture, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, China

    Letian Xu, Jundan Deng & Longwa Zhang

  2. Hubei Collaborative Innovation Center for Green Transformation of Bio-Resources, College of Life Science, Hubei University, Wuhan, China

    Letian Xu & Jiang Zhang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Integrated Management of Pest Insects and Rodents, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 Beichen West Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Min Lu

  4. Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory for Applied Microbiology, Ecology Institute, Qilu University of Technology (Shandong Academy of Sciences), Ji’nan, 250101, China

    Fangyuan Zhou

  5. College of Life Sciences, Huzhou Univerisity, No. 759, East 2nd Road, Huzhou, 313000, China

    Chihang Cheng

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  1. Letian Xu
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Correspondence to Longwa Zhang, Jiang Zhang or Min Lu.

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Additional information

Communicated by J.D. Sweeney.

Special Issue on Invasive Pests of Forests and Urban Trees.

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Xu, L., Deng, J., Zhou, F. et al. Gut microbiota in an invasive bark beetle infected by a pathogenic fungus accelerates beetle mortality. J Pest Sci 92, 343–351 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-018-0999-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10340-018-0999-4

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