Tanahashi Masahiko, Kubota Kôhei, Matsushita Norihisa, Togashi Katsumi
Laboratory of Forest Zoology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8657, Japan.
Naturwissenschaften. 2010 Mar;97(3):311-7. doi: 10.1007/s00114-009-0643-5. Epub 2010 Jan 27.
Most wood-feeding insects need an association with microbes to utilize wood as food, and some have special organs to store and convey the microbes. We report here the discovery of the microbe-storage organ (mycangium) in stag beetles (Coleoptera: Lucanidae), which develop in decayed wood. The mycangium, which was discovered in the abdomen, is present in all adult females of 22 lucanid species examined in this study, but absent in adult males. By contrast, adult insects of both sexes of selected Passalidae, Geotrupidae, and Scarabaeidae, which are related to Lucanidae, lacked mycangia similar to those of the lucanid species. Yeast-like microbes were isolated from the mycangium of five lucanid species. DNA sequence analyses indicate that the microbes are closely related to the xylose-fermenting yeasts Pichia stipitis, Pichia segobiensis, or Pichia sp. known from the gut of a passalid species.
大多数以木材为食的昆虫需要与微生物共生才能将木材作为食物，有些昆虫还拥有特殊器官来储存和传递这些微生物。我们在此报告在锹甲（鞘翅目：锹甲科）中发现了微生物储存器官（菌囊），锹甲在腐朽的木材中发育。该菌囊在腹部被发现，在本研究中所检测的22种锹甲科成年雌性个体中均有存在，但在成年雄性个体中不存在。相比之下，与锹甲科相关的选定拟步甲科、粪金龟科和金龟科的成年雌雄昆虫均没有类似锹甲科物种的菌囊。从5种锹甲科物种的菌囊中分离出了类酵母微生物。DNA序列分析表明，这些微生物与已知存在于一种拟步甲科物种肠道中的木糖发酵酵母树干毕赤酵母、塞戈维亚毕赤酵母或毕赤酵母属密切相关。
