Journal of Pest Science (2019) 92, 343-351

Letian Xu, Jundan Deng, Fangyuan Zhou, Chihang Cheng, Longwa Zhang, Jiang Zhang and Min Lu (2019)
Gut microbiota in an invasive bark beetle infected by a pathogenic fungus accelerates beetle mortality
Journal of Pest Science 92 (1), 343-351
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.
(The abstract is excluded from the Creative Commons licence and has been copied with permission by the publisher.)
Link to article at publishers website

Research topic(s) for pests/diseases/weeds:
biocontrol - natural enemies
Research topic(s) for beneficials or antagonists:
general biology - morphology - evolution

---

Pest and/or beneficial records:

Beneficial	Pest/Disease/Weed	Crop/Product	Country	Quarant.
	Dendroctonus valens	Pine (Pinus)
Beauveria bassiana (entomopathogen)	Dendroctonus valens