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  • From: Bunjov AT aol.com
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Homestead] Pine Beetles
  • Date: Wed, 7 Jan 2009 19:25:43 EST



I started researching this a while back because of the huge burn areas here
in the San Bernardino National Forest. The effect these beetles are having
on
the forest's re-growth efforts are devastating to humankind, but perhaps
Gaia does know what she's doing, after all...and it would pay us just to sit
back and stay tuned?
Sandy
Mid-Mojave

Forestry, Wildlife & Fisheries News


Scientists discover bacteria aiding Southern pine beetles
By Karen Brasher
MSU College of Forest Resources
MISSISSIPPI STATE -- Researchers may have found the secret to controlling a
tiny insect that robs Mississippi landowners of an estimated 12 million cubic

feet of pine forest each year.
Though only an eighth of an inch long, the Southern pine beetle is a big pest
and difficult to contain. Scientists at Mississippi State University’s
Forest and Wildlife Research Center, along with colleagues at the University
of
Wisconsin-Madison, Harvard and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest
Service, have made a breakthrough with the discovery of an
antibiotic-producing
bacterium.
Beetles use the bacterium to protect their food against other microbes.
Published in the refereed journal Science, the research found that adult
female Southern pine beetles carry a previously unknown bacterium. The
bacterium
produces a unique antibiotic that is highly effective against a fungus that
can attack the beetles’ food source.
“The beetles have established an association with a beneficial fungus,” said
Cetin Yuceer, forestry assistant professor and co-investigator in the
finding. “Beetles bore holes through the outer bark of Southern pines to
create
galleries within the inner bark and phloem. During this process, the females
inoculate the galleries with this beneficial fungus, which is carried in a
specialized beetle storage compartment.”
The fungus colonizes the galleries and serves as an important food source for
developing beetle larvae, Yuceer added.
However, an antagonistic fungus can out-compete the beneficial fungus in
these galleries and disrupt Southern pine beetle larval development.
“Our findings indicate that another beneficial connection also has been
established between the Southern pine beetle and the newly discovered
bacterium,
which produces an antibiotic that inhibits the antagonistic fungus,” Yuceer
said.
Beetles are basically protecting their food from pathogens using a bacterium
with a potent chemical inhibitor.
“Disruption of this newly identified relationship between Southern pine
beetles and bacteria could be the way to control infestation of pine trees by

beetles,” said Jim Shepard, head of MSU’s Department of Forestry.
“Southern pine beetles are extremely difficult to control, and practically no
effective pest management tactics have been developed,” Shepard added.
Identifying beneficial associations, such as this one, could be an effective
strategy in the search for new, bioactive natural products to protect plants,

animals and humans.
“Perhaps some of those much-needed small molecules are waiting to be
discovered in our backyard trees,” Yuceer said.

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