Two newGeosmithiaspecies inG. pallidaspecies complex from bark beetles in eastern USA

Abstract

Species of Geosmithia are cosmopolitan but understudied fungi, and most are associated with phloem-feeding bark beetles on various woody hosts. We surveyed 207 bark and ambrosia beetles from 37 species in the eastern USA for associated fungi. The community is dominated by species in the G. pallida species complex (GPSC) and included several Geosmithia isolates that appear to be new to science. The new Geosmithia isolates exhibited the characteristic brownish-colored colonies typical for the G. pallida species complex and were phylogenetically resolved as two genealogically exclusive lineages based on a concatenated multilocus data set based on the internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of the nuc rDNA (ITS1-5.8S-ITS2 = ITS), and the translation elongation factor 1-α (TEF1-α), β-tubulin (TUB2), and RNA polymerase II second largest subunit (RPB2) genes. Two new Geosmithia species, G. brunnea and G. proliferans, are proposed, and their morphological traits and phylogenetic placements are presented.

Geosmithia species associated with fir-infesting beetles in Poland

“…where adults do not enter these tissues. Although, there are many studies confirming associations between ambrosia beetles and Geosmithia fungi [8,10,11,14,16], our study showed that T. lineatum does not transmit Geosmithia. There was also no evidence that this ambrosia beetle can transmit Geosmithia fungi in pine habitats [9].…”

“…There was also no evidence that this ambrosia beetle can transmit Geosmithia fungi in pine habitats [9]. The genus Geosmithia currently includes 44 recognized taxa with only 16 described to date, most of which are associated with phloem-breeding bark beetles [4,5,[7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. In the present study, we identified two distinct Geosmithia operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on morphological and molecular characterizations.…”

“…Bark-and wood-boring beetles (Coleoptera) are commonly associated with various species of ascomycetes in three orders: Ophiostomatales, Microascales, and Hypocreales [1,2]. Members of the Hypocreales are common in all types of moist forests [3], however, only Geosmithia fungi that produce Penicillium-like conidiophores are associates of bark beetles on hardwood and conifer trees worldwide [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. The bark beetle-Geosmithia relationships vary, ranging from specialists with a limited range of vectors to generalists recorded with numerous vectors [4,6,9,11].…”

Geosmithia Species Associated With Bark Beetles From Southern China, With the Description of Four New Species

“…3 and Geosmithia sp. 23 which are know from various bark beetle hosts in Europa, USA and Seychelles (Kolařík et al 2007(Kolařík et al , 2008(Kolařík et al , 2017Huang et al 2017Huang et al , 2019, and further study need to clarify among these three lineages. In this study, we isolated G. pulverea from A. gracilipes, Gne.…”

“…It was consequently recognized, using multigene phylogeny, together with Geosmithia sp. 23, as a well-de ned phylogenetic species inside the G. pallida species complex (Kolařík et al 2017;Huang et al 2017). The colony of G. pulverea was very similar to Geosmithia sp.…”