Inoculum 63(3) - Mycological Society of America

Yeast Diversity Studied from the Gut of Australian Passalid Beetles
Hector Urbina, LSU graduate student from Caracas,
was awarded an MSA Graduate Fellowship in
2011, and he is very grateful to the Society for the
award. MSA funding and a small grant from a program
sponsored by the National Science Foundation
and the Louisiana Board of Regents provided resources
for a month in tropical forests in Queensland,
Australia. The objective
of the trip was to collect
Australian passalid beetles
(Passalidae,
Coleoptera) and to isolate
and purify yeasts
from the gut of the
wood-ingesting beetles.
Strains associated with
the gut of individuals in
this family of the lignicolous
insects are able to
degrade and ferment a
number of plant cell
wall components.
This family of insects
mostly feed on decaying
wood, and more
than 30 species of passalids
have been report-
2 Inoculum 63(3), June 2012
ed in from Australia. Yeasts from the Australian beetles
as well as from the southeastern US, Guatemala,
Panama, and Thailand will give Hector a snapshot of
the diversity of passalid-associated yeasts in several
tropical regions of the world. Hector was successful
in isolating more than 1000 yeasts from 200 adult
Continued on following page
Fig. 1. View of the Lamington National Park, Brisbane (Australia)