Isolations were made to determine the fungal symbionts colonizing @entity429 quercivorus beetle galleries of dead or dying Quercus laurifolia, Castanopsis cuspidata, Quercus serrata, Quercus crispula, and Quercus robur. For these studies, logs from oak wilt-killed trees were collected from Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. Fungi were isolated from the: (1) entrances of beetle galleries, (2) vertical galleries, (3) lateral galleries, and (4) the larval cradle of P. quercivorus in each host tree. Among the fungus colonies which appeared on YM agar plates, 1,219 were isolated as the representative isolates for fungus species inhabiting in the galleries based on their cultural characteristics. The validity of the visual classification of the fungus colonies was checked and if necessary properly corrected using microsatellite-primed PCR fingerprints. The @entity377 sequence of the D1/D2 region of the large subunit nuclear rRNA gene detected 38 fungus species (104 strains) of which three species, i.e., Candida sp. 3, Candida kashinagacola (both @entity375 ), and the filamentous fungus Raffaelea quercivora were isolated from all the tree species. The two @entity375 were most prevalent in the interior of galleries, regardless of host tree species, suggesting their close association with the beetle. A culture-independent method, terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (T-RFLP) analysis was also used to characterize the fungus flora of beetle galleries. T-RFLP patterns showed that @entity375 species belonging to the genus Ambrosiozyma frequently occurred on the gallery walls along with the two Candida species. Ours is the first report showing the specific fungi inhabiting the galleries of a platypodid ambrosia beetle.

Fungus symbionts colonizing the galleries of the ambrosia beetle XXXX quercivorus.

@entity375 :: ('4932', 'Species') :: ['yeast', 'yeasts'] @entity377 :: ('CHEBI:36976', 'Chemical') :: ['nucleotide'] @entity429 :: ('9258', 'Species') :: ['Platypus']
@entity429 :: (9258,Species) :: ['Platypus']
