- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The title of her seminar is "Mechanisms of Resistance in Poplar Against the Asian Longhorned Beetle and its Gut Symbionts."
Hoover received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1997.
"Asian longhorned beetle (ALB), Anoplophora glabripennis, is a polyphagous, tree-killing wood borer, reported to attack a broad range of deciduous tree species, including poplar," she writes in her abstract. "Yet in the invasive range of North America and Europe, poplars are usually avoided even when they are abundant. Populus species produce salicinoids (phenolic glycosides) that have properties known to reduce feeding and cause gut lesions in foliage-feeding herbivores such as gypsy moth."
"We hypothesized that these compounds may confer resistance to ALB and help explain the feeding and attack patterns in the field in both the native and introduced range of ALB. Concentrations of salicinoids normally found in bark deterred adult feeding, but low doses of salicinoids did not inhibit feeding and resulted in dramatic effects on beetle fitness. Diversity of gut fungal and microbial symbionts and abundance of the key gut fungal symbiont were affected as well."
"In Southern China, the beetle did not exhibit a feeding preference between willow and maple, but like the invasive populations in the U.S. and Europe, beetles would not feed on and seldom attack poplar, yet in Northern China poplar plantations are often heavily attacked by ALB," Hoover related. "ALB-host interactions appear to be complex and it is possible that there are differences in geographic populations of ALB in tolerance to salicinoids. These studies will be repeated this summer in Northern China and Inner Mongolia. Understanding the mechanistic differences between geographic populations of ALB will contribute to developing control measures for this destructive wood-borer."
The department's winter-quarter seminars, coordinated by assistant professor Christian Nansen, take place every Wednesday through March 15. All are held from 4:10 to 5 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. See seminar schedule.