• Korean journal of applied entomology
• /
• v.56 no.1
• /
• pp.41-49
• /
• 2017

The community of xylophagous beetles belonging to Cerambycidae, Curculionidae and Scolytinae in Korean white pine, Pinus koraiensis Siebold & Zuccarini, forests was surveyed using Malaise traps in 2007. A total of 1,615 xylophagous beetles were collected, including 184 cerambycids from 15 species, 185 curculionids from 17 species, and 1,246 scolytid beetles from 6 species, of which the dominant species was the ambrosia beetle Xyleborus mutilatus Blandford. Ranked by order of population size, the wood-boring and bark beetle community in Korean white pine showed high dominance by one species of Scolytinae, suggesting the community had low biological diversity. Thinning in Korean white pine forests influenced on the abundance of bark and ambrosia beetles, whose populations in particular stands increased 1 year after thinning, and then decreased the following year.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
• /
• v.51 no.3
• /
• pp.209-220
• /
• 2015

In this study, gut bacterial communities in xylophagous insects were analyzed using the pyrosequencing of 16S rRNA genes for their potential biotechnological applications in lignocelluloses degradation. The result showed that operational taxonomic units (OTUs), species richness and diversity index were higher in the hindgut than in the midgut of all insect samples analyzed. The dominant phyla or classes were Firmicutes (54.0%), Bacteroidetes (14.5%), ${\gamma}-Proteobacteria$ (12.3%) in all xylophagous insects except for Rhinotermitidae. The principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) showed that the bacterial community structure mostly clustered according to phylogeny of hosts rather than their habitats. In our study, the two carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC)-degrading isolates which showed the highest enzyme activity were most closely related to Bacillus toyonensis $BCT-7112^T$ and Lactococcus lactis subsp. hordniae $NCDO\;2181^T$, respectively. Cellulolytic enzyme activity analysis showed that ${\beta}-1,4-glucosidase$, ${\beta}-1,4-endoglucanase$ and ${\beta}-1,4-xylanase$ were higher in the hindgut of Cerambycidae. The results demonstrate that xylophagous insect guts harbor diverse gut bacteria, including valuable cellulolytic bacteria, which could be used for various biotechnological applications.