Ophiostomatoid fungi associated with pines infected by Bursaphelenchus xylophilus and Monochamus alternatus in China, including three new species

Abstract

The activity of the pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchusxylophilus leads to extremely serious economic, ecological and social losses in East Asia. The nematode causes pine wilt disease, which is currently regarded as the most important forest disease in China. The pathogenic nematode feeds on dendrocola fungi to complete its cycle of infection. As the vector of the nematode, the Japanese pine sawyer (Monochamusalternatus) also carries dendrocola fungi. Pine woods, infected by B.xylophilus and tunnelled by M.alternatus, are also inhabited by ophiostomatoid fungi. These fungi are well known for their association with many bark and ambrosia beetles. They can cause sapstain and other serious tree diseases. The aims of our study were to investigate and identify the ophiostomatoid communities associated with the epidemic pine wood nematode and the pine sawyer in Pinusmassoniana and P.thunbergii forests, which are the main hosts of the pine wood nematode in China. Two hundred and forty strains of ophiostomatoid fungi were isolated from nematode and sawyer–infected trees in the coastal Shandong and Zhejiang Provinces, representing newly and historically infected areas, respectively. Six ophiostomatoid species were identified on the basis of morphological, physiological and molecular data. For the latter, DNA sequences of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1–5.8S–ITS2) region and partial b-tubulin gene were examined. The ophiostomatoid species included one known species, Ophiostomaips, three novel species, viz. Ophiostomaalbumsp. nov., Ophiostomamassonianasp. nov. and Sporothrixzhejiangensissp. nov. and two species whose identities are still uncertain, Ophiostomacf.deltoideosporum and Graphilbumcf.rectangulosporium, due to the paucity of the materials obtained. The ophiostomatoid community was dominated by O.ips. This study revealed that a relatively high species diversity of ophiostomatoid fungi are associated with pine infected by B.xylophilus and M.alternatus in China.

Ophiostomatoid fungi associated with Ips subelongatus, including eight new species from northeastern China

“…Ophiostoma lotiforme resided in a species complex previously reported as group A (Chang et al 2017), together with O. saponiodorum, O. pallidulum, O. acarorum, and O. massoniana (Linnakoski et al 2010, Wang et al 2018. In our study, O. lotiforme was isolated from a single location (Inner Mongolia) from Pinus sylvestris var.…”

Ophiostomatoid fungi associated with mites phoretic on bark beetles in Qinghai, China

“…In recent years, 98 ophiostomatoid species, including 49 new species, have been reported in association with bark beetles from China (Table S1 ) (Lu et al 2009a , 2009b ; Paciura et al 2010a , 2010b ; Zhou et al 2011 , 2013 ; Taerum et al 2013 ; Yin et al 2015 , 2016 , 2019 , 2020 ; Wang et al 2016 , 2018 , 2019 , 2020 ; Chang et al 2017 , 2019 ; Liu et al 2017 ). The study by Chang et al ( 2017 ) was the first to report ophiostomatoid fungi associated with phoretic mites.…”

Ophiostomatoid Fungi Associated with Cryphalus Piceae in Shandong province in eastern China

“…In this study, we recovered seven species of ophiostomatoid fungi including four previously undescribed species from the Shandong province of China. The previous study from this province, reported two new ophiostomatoid fungi associated with B. xylophilus and M. alternatus collected from two pine species (Wang et al, 2018). Thus far, more than 10 bark beetle species have been reported from this province (Bai, 1985;Zhu et al, 1991).…”

“…Moreover, an ophiostomatoid fungus can symbiotically associate with multiple beetle species. Recently, six ophiostomatoid fungi were isolated from M. alternatus in China (Zhao et al, 2014;Wang et al, 2018). Among them, Ophiostoma ips were previously isolated from B.…”

“…As reported previously and in the present study, the morphological differencesIn the last decade, more than a hundred ophiostomatoid fungi were reported from China. Among these, almost half were previously undescribed species(Yin et al, 2016;Chang et al, 2017;Wang et al, 2018;Chang et al, 2019;Chang et al, 2020;Wang et al, 2020).…”