Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor. J. Mycol.)
Indexed in SCOPUS, KCI, DOAJ
OPEN ACCESS, PEER REVIEWED
pISSN 0253-651X
eISSN 2383-5249
RESEARCH ARTICLE

First Record of Cytospora ceratosperma from Ambrosia Beetles in Korea

1Apple Research Center, National Institute of Horticultural & Herbal Science, Gunwi 43100, Korea
2Department of Plant Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41566, Korea

*Correspondence to heeyoung@knu.ac.kr

Korean Journal of Mycology (Kor J Mycol) 2026 March, Volume 54, Issue 1, pages 43-54.
https://doi.org/10.4489/kjm.2026.54.1.5
Received on February 11, 2026, Revised on March 22, 2026, Accepted on March 23, 2026, Published on March 31, 2026.
Copyright © The Korean Society of Mycology.
This is an Open Access article which is freely available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

ABSTRACT

Fungal isolate ARI-25-A10 was obtained from an ambrosia beetle collected in an apple orchard in Korea. The isolate was identified through an integrative taxonomic framework incorporating cultural and morphological characterization, growth responses under different temperature and pH conditions, and multilocus phylogenetic analyses. When cultured on potato dextrose agar at 25°C for 5 days, colonies reached 65.3–67.3 mm in diameter. Colony morphology transitioned from white to pale smoke grey to light olivaceous as incubation progressed, and sclerotia developed during extended culture. In temperature-dependent growth assays, colony development was minimal at 10°C and 30°C, whereas optimal growth was observed between 15°C and 25°C. In pH-response assays, optimal growth occurred at pH 5, with stable growth also observed between pH 4 and 6, indicating an optimal pH range of 4–5. Hyphae were hyaline, irregularly septate, and averaged 2.2 μm in width. BLAST analyses of the internal transcribed spacer, actin, RNA polymerase II second largest subunit, translation elongation factor 1-α, and β-tubulin gene sequences revealed high sequence similarity between ARI-25-A10 and Cytospora ceratosperma. In addition, multilocus phylogenetic reconstruction using concatenated datasets placed ARI-25-A10 within a strongly supported clade comprising previously reported and characterized C. ceratosperma strains. This study represents the first report of C. ceratosperma associated with an ambrosia beetle collected from an apple orchard in Korea.

Keywords

Ambrosia beetles, Cytospora ceratosperma, Korean apple orchard, Mycological characterization

INTRODUCTION

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CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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REFERENCES

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