EAPSI: Beetle-fungus fidelity: an investigation into how ambrosia beetles maintain their fungal symbionts

Bateman Craig C, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

Ambrosia beetles are a harmless component of many forests where they grow and maintain gardens of symbiotic fungi inside dead or dying trees. This habit has changed for some ambrosia beetles that have been accidentally introduced into regions that are distant from their native range. Non-native ambrosia beetles can attack healthy trees, causing tree death with the fungi they carry. For example, redbay trees in the southeast United States now lie on a path to extinction since the arrival of the redbay ambrosia beetle and its associated fungus from Asia. The proposed project will investigate how ambrosia beetles maintain their relationship with fungi, which are often the causal agent in tree death. Beetles and fungi will be collected in collaboration with Dr. Wang Bo of the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens in southern China, a region which hosts some of the largest diversity of ambrosia beetles on earth. Results generated from this study will be used to predict which non-native beetles may be carrying tree-killing fungi and whether those fungi may be shared with other beetle species. Pestiferous, non-native ambrosia beetles greatly threaten forest ecosystems across the world. It's currently unknown how frequently exotic beetles may share their symbiotic plant pathogenic fungi with native beetles, and how faithful the beetles are to specific fungal partners. This project will determine how the ambrosia symbiosis is maintained through high-throughput and culture-based analyses of the fungal communities from diverse ambrosia beetle clades in both native and exotic territories. Understanding these relationships will allow for predictions about the probability of tree-pathogens spreading to different beetle species, which is key for informed management of these complexes as they are introduced to non-native regions. This NSF EAPSI award is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.