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Updated: Jun 12, 2026

Isolation, Behavioral Identification, and Pathogenicity Assessment of Entomopathogenic Fungi from a Forest Wood Borer
Published on: September 29, 2023
Nitrogen concentration in mountain pine beetle larvae reflects nitrogen status of the tree host and two fungal
Stephen P Cook1, Brian M Shirley, Paul J Zambino
1Department of Forest Resources, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 82844-1133, USA. stephenc@uidaho.edu
Abstract:
Individual lodgepole pines (Pinus contorta) were fertilized with urea at nitrogen (N) inputs equivalent to 0, 315, or 630 kg/ha. Four months after application of the fertilizer, inner bark tissue N concentrations were significantly higher in the trees that had received the low dose (315 kg/ha) fertilization treatment than in the control trees; trees that had received the high-dose treatment (630 kg/ha) were intermediate and not significantly different from either of the other treatments. There was a significant positive correlation between N concentration in inner bark tissue and larval mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae (Coleoptera: Curculionidae, Scolytinae). In vitro studies on synthetic growth media examined effects of temperature and N concentration on N concentration of two common fungal associates of the mountain pine beetle (Ophiostoma clavigerum and Ophiostoma montium). Increasing N concentration in growth media significantly increased fungal N concentrations in both O. clavigerum and O. montium. Furthermore, N concentration was consistently higher in O. clavigerum than in O. montium. Neither species had sufficient growth at 30 degrees C, nor did O. clavigerum at 15 degrees C, to test N concentration. However, for O. montium, increasing temperatures decreased fungal N concentrations. There was no correlation between N concentration of O. clavigerum and growth temperature. Potential impacts of ingestion of the fungal species by developing mountain pine beetle larvae-infesting trees under various environmental conditions such as increasing temperatures are discussed.
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