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#Fungi disarm #BarkBeetle chemical shields by converting their plant-derived toxins phys.org/news/2025-12-fungus-b… pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2525…

"a bark beetle can co-opt a tree's defensive compounds to make defenses against its own enemies. However, since one of the enemies, the #fungus Beauveria bassiana, has developed the ability to detoxify these antimicrobial defenses, it can successfully infect the #BarkBeetles and thus actually help the tree in its battle against bark #beetles"

#Fungi #Symbiosis

Photo of bark beetles in the bark of a spruce tree. The beetle in the middle is infected with the fungus Beauveria bassiana which shows as white mold on its surface.

Fungus disarms bark beetle chemical shields by converting their plant-derived toxins

Spruce bark is rich in phenolic compounds that protect trees from pathogenic fungi. A research team at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena has investigated how these plant defenses function within the food web, particularly in spruc…
Max Planck Society (Phys.org)
#fungi #fungus #symbiosis #beetles #barkbeetle #barkbeetles
in reply to Lukas VFN 🇪🇺

Frank Aylward
mastodon - Link to source
Frank Aylward
• •
very cool! I worked on this a bit for my PhD work - the bacteria likely play a role too - a symbiotic consortia journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1…

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