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

Xiuyu Zhang; You Li; Hongli Si; Guoyan Zhao; Miroslav Kolařík; Jiri Hulcr; Xiaoqian Jiang; Meixue Dai; Runlei Chang

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2022.820402

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

Front Microbiol. 2022 Mar 14:13:820402. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.820402. eCollection 2022.

Authors

Xiuyu Zhang¹, You Li^{2

3

4}, Hongli Si¹, Guoyan Zhao¹, Miroslav Kolařík⁵, Jiri Hulcr⁴, Xiaoqian Jiang¹, Meixue Dai¹, Runlei Chang¹

Affiliations

¹ College of Life Sciences, Shandong Normal University, Jinan, China.
² Vector-Borne Virus Research Center, Fujian Province Key Laboratory of Plant Virology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
³ College of Plant Protection, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, China.
⁴ School of Forests, Fisheries and Geomatics Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, United States.
⁵ Institute of Microbiology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia.

Abstract

Fungi of the genus Geosmithia are frequently associated with bark beetles that feed on phloem on various woody hosts. Most studies on Geosmithia were carried out in North and South America and Europe, with only two species being reported from Taiwan, China. This study aimed to investigate the diversity of Geosmithia species in China. Field surveys in Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shanghai, and Yunnan yielded a total of 178 Geosmithia isolates from 12 beetle species. The isolates were grouped based on morphology. The internal transcribed spacer, β-tubulin, and elongation factor 1-α gene regions of the representatives of each group were sequenced. Phylogenetic trees were constructed based on those sequences. In total, 12 species were identified, with three previously described species (Geosmithia xerotolerans, G. putterillii, and G. pallida) and nine new species which are described in this paper as G. luteobrunnea, G. radiata, G. brevistipitata, G. bombycina, G. granulata (Geosmithia sp. 20), G. subfulva, G. pulverea (G. sp. 3 and Geosmithia sp. 23), G. fusca, and G. pumila sp. nov. The dominant species obtained in this study were G. luteobrunnea and G. pulverea. This study systematically studied the Geosmithia species in China and made an important contribution to filling in the gaps in our understanding of global Geosmithia species diversity.

Keywords: 9 new taxa; Geosmithia; bark beetles; fungal community; symbiosis.