RESUMEN
The formulation of a Finnish isolate of the saprotrophic wood-rotting fungus Phlebiopsis gigantea into the biocontrol agent (BCA) Rotstop, which is used to prevent infection of Norway spruce stumps by aerial basidiospores of H. annosum, has led to its application to more than 200,000 ha of forest in Scandinavia and North Europe. The success of this treatment opens the possibility of introducing the Rotstop strain into Britain for use on Sitka spruce stumps, which at present (2022) are lacking adequate prophylactic treatment. However, Rotstop is probably non-native to Britain and to North America (the ancestral home of this spruce), and we do not know if this xylem-decaying BCA can invade standing trees. In this paper, we describe a trial into this issue conducted for the U.K. Forestry Commission in Denmark, in a country where both Rotstop and Sitka spruce have been naturalised. It was preliminary to further stump treatment trials, and is relevant to long-term issues surrounding stump treatment in Britain. Inoculations into 44-year-old standing Sitka spruce with 20 mm wooden Scots pine plugs pre-colonised with Rotstop resulted in decay of the S1, S2, S3 and middle lamellae of sapwood above and below the wounds after 11-18 months. In contrast, infection of sapwood occurred in only one of 39 wounds on the same trees challenged with oidial spore inoculants adpressed to undamaged xylem sapwood during the same period. While the results suggest that release of Rotstop into the productive stands of Sitka spruce in Britain would be unlikely to cause long-term commercial losses to wounded trees, the work highlights issues relating to the assessment of risk associated with the introduction of non-native BCAs within the forest environment.
RESUMEN
Sirex noctilio is a woodwasp of Eurasian origin that was inadvertently introduced to the southern hemisphere in the 1900s and to North America over a decade ago. Its larvae bore in Pinus spp. and can cause significant mortality in pine plantations. S noctilio is associated with a symbiotic white rot fungus, Amylostereum areolatum, which females inject into trees when they oviposit and which is required for survival of developing larvae. We compared the genetic diversity of A. areolatum isolated from S. noctilio and other woodwasps collected from Europe and from northeastern North America to determine the origin of introduction(s) into the United States. Multilocus genotyping of nuclear ribosomal regions and protein coding genes revealed two widespread multilocus genotypes (MLGs) among the European samples, one of which is present in the US. The other two MLGs associated with S. noctilio in the US represented unique haplotypes. These latter two haplotypes were likely from unrepresented source populations, and together with the introduced widespread haplotype reveal multiple A. areolatum MLGs introduced by S. noctilio and indicate possible multiple S. noctilio introductions to North America from Europe. Our results also showed a lack of fidelity between woodwasp hosts and Amylostereum species.