Student 10-Minute Presentation
Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity
Student
Student Competition
Austin Ashley Hendricks (she/her/hers)
Graduate Student
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Keith Philips
Western Kentucky University
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Tobias Engl
Max Planck Institute
Jena, Thuringen, Germany
Vincent Martinson
Assistant Professor
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, New Mexico
A wide range of insects rely on symbiotic microbes to expand their niche through nutritional supplementation. These relationships have independently evolved in at least 7 orders of insects. The beetle family Ptinidae (Deathwatch, Spider, and Wood-borer Beetles) includes several pests of stored products, such as the Cigarette beetle, Lasioderma serricorne, and the Drugstore beetle, Stegobium paniceum, both of which are hosts to symbiotic fungi in the genus Symbiotaphrina. Because the beetles rely on Symbiotaphrina to thrive, Symbiotaphrina has been proposed as a target for pesticides. However, the prevalence of Symbiotaphrina and other mutualistic symbionts has not been thoroughly evaluated in other ptinid beetles. Here, we used ultra-conserved element sequencing to resolve the phylogenetic tree of ptinid beetles. To address the fungal symbionts, we used ITS amplicon sequencing to screen for signs of infection by Symbiotaphrina and other endosymbionts. We found that there are there prominent strains of Symbiotaphrina distributed amongst Deathwatch beetles, and that Symbiotaphrina does not appear to be a major component of the microbial communities of Spider beetles.