Environmental Microbiology (2022) 24, 3369-3389

Vineet Meshram, Gunjan Sharma, Marcel Maymon, Alex Protasov, Zvi Mendel and Stanley Freeman (2022)
Symbiosis and pathogenicity of Geosmithia and Talaromyces spp. associated with the cypress bark beetles Phloeosinus spp. and their parasitoids
Environmental Microbiology 24 (8), 3369-3389
Abstract: Fungi associated with cypress bark beetles are practically unknown in the Eastern Mediterranean. Our study focused on the fungi associated with the body parts and galleries of two indigenous cypress bark beetles, Phloeosinus armatus and P. bicolor, sampled from Cupressus sempervirens trees in different regions in Israel. Arbitrarily primed PCR, performed on genomic DNA of 302 isolates, clustered the fungal population into five distinct groups. Multilocus phylogeny, split-network analyses and morphological characterization identified the isolates as Geosmithia omnicola, Geosmithia langdonii, Geosmithia sp. 708b, Geosmithia cupressina sp. nov. CBS147103 and Talaromyces cupressi sp. nov. CBS147104. Of these fungal isolates, G. cupressina and T. cupressi are newly described, and their morphological features and phylogenetic designations are presented. Inoculation of intact cypress saplings in an outdoor net-house revealed that only the representative isolate T. cupressi sp. nov. CBS147104 causes 100% disease incidence, whereas Geosmithia spp. isolates are not pathogenic. A number of these fungi were isolated from parasitoids that emerged from branch and stem sections colonized by P. armatus. This study suggests a long and stable association between Phloeosinus and Geosmithia species, and a possible role for additional associated fungal species as pathogens or endophytes of C. sempervirens trees in Israel.
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Database assignments for author(s): Zvi Mendel, Stanley Freeman

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
transmission/dispersal of plant diseases

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Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Phloeosinus armatus	Cypress (Cupressus)	Israel
	Phloeosinus bicolor	Cypress (Cupressus)	Israel