Bark and ambrosia beetles reared from 13 species of tropical tree in Papua New Guinea

Study Extent

The study was conducted in a mosaic of primary and secondary lowland humid rainforest near Ohu Village, Madang province, Papua New Guinea (146°40' E, 5°15' S; 150– 200 m a.s.l., average annual rainfall 3558 mm with low seasonal variation). The diverse vegetation [152 woody species of diameter at breast height (DBH) >5 cm ha – 1 , Novotny et al. , 2004] is classified as mixed evergreen hill forest (Paijmans, 1976 ). The study was completed during 2002 – 2005 with different individuals of each tree species investigated at different times of the year, in order to diminish any influence of seasonal climate changes.

Sampling

Thirteen tree species were selected for the study so that they were locally abundant, represented all major lineages of dicotyledonous plants and included also some closely related (congeneric and confamilial) species. Three individuals were sampled from each of 11 tree species, and two individuals from the remaining two species ( Table 1 ). Phylogenetic relationships and taxonomic nomenclature of the studied host species are from Soltis et al. (2000) . All species were characterised by wood density and water content (J. Leps, unpublished). Trees with DBH ∼ 20 cm were used for the study. Each tree was girdled, killed by fire, and left standing dead to allow for the beetle colonisation to start. The girdling consisted of peeling an approximately 30 cm wide circumferential strip of bark and wounding an adjacent 30 cm wide strip with multiple cuts. Fire and girdling increase the attractiveness of a tree to ambrosia beetles (J. Hulcr, unpublished data). After 20 days, the already dead tree was felled and the following standard-size samples were taken and placed separately into rearing boxes: (i) the uppermost 20 – 30 cm section of roots with adjacent 10 cm of the trunk base, (ii) a 50 cm long section of the burned part of the trunk and a 50 cm long section of the non-burned part including the wounded surface, (iii) branches 2 – 10 cm in diameter filling 30 × 50 × 60 cm space (90 000 cm 3 ) inside a rearing box, and (iv) twigs (diameter < 2 cm) filling the same volume inside a rearing box. Each box had a single opening in the front to which a transparent bottle with ethanol was attached. Phototactic beetles flew towards the light coming through the bottle, and were killed and preserved by the ethanol. Beetle samples were removed twice a week for 10 weeks, after which emergence of beetles was rare. The beetles were sorted into morphospecies by trained parataxonomists, databased, and subsequently identified by J. Hulcr or R. A. Beaver (Chiang Mai, Thailand), using comparison with identified material, including holotypes, in major collections. Vouchers were deposited in the Natürhistorisches Museum in Vienna, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC, Forest Research Institute, Lae, Papua New Guinea, National Insect Collection, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the Natural History Museum in London and the A. J. Cook Arthropod Collection of Michigan State University, East Lansing, U.S.A. The phloeophagous subtribe Cryphalina was excluded from the analysis as the inadequate taxonomy made species delimitation impossible. This is an important omission since several thousands of cryphalines were reared. Cryphalina are one of the taxonomically least known groups of scolytines ( Wood, 1986 ).

Method steps

1. Full details can be found- Hulcr, Jiri, et al. "Host specificity of ambrosia and bark beetles (Col., Curculionidae: Scolytinae and Platypodinae) in a New Guinea rainforest." Ecological Entomology 32.6 (2007): 762-772.

This dataset comprises Bark and ambrosia beetles (members of Scolytinae and Platypodinae)

1. Scolytinae
   common name: Bark Beetle rank: subfamily
2. Platypodinae
   rank: subfamily
3. Curculionidae
   common name: Weevil rank: family
4. Coleoptera
   rank: order

The study was conducted in a mosaic of primary and secondary lowland humid rainforest near Ohu Village, Madang province, Papua New Guinea, at an elevation average of 150– 200 m a.s.l. and an annual rainfall of 3558 mm with low seasonal variation. The diverse vegetation is classified as mixed evergreen hill forest.