Fungus-cultivation
Guides
Acromyrmex versicolor
Desert Leaf-cutter Ant, Desert Leafcutting Ant
Acromyrmex versicolor is a desert-adapted leafcutter ant found in the Colorado and Sonoran deserts. Colonies exhibit pleometrosis, where multiple queens cooperate to found nests, though typically only one queen survives to establish a mature monogynous colony. Workers collect living and dead leaves to cultivate fungus gardens, the sole food source for the colony. The species is notable for forming large, distinctive nest craters covered with leaf fragments and for its flexible foraging behavior that shifts between diurnal and nocturnal activity depending on temperature.
Anisandrus dispar
European Shothole Borer
Anisandrus dispar is an ambrosia beetle in the family Curculionidae, commonly known as the European Shothole Borer. It is an economically significant pest in fruit orchards, particularly apple cultivation. The species exhibits a distinct seasonal flight pattern, with females conducting most flight activity from February through May. It maintains an obligate symbiotic relationship with the fungus Ambrosiella hartigii, which it cultivates in gallery systems within host wood.
Gnathotrichus materiarius
American utilizable wood bark beetle
Gnathotrichus materiarius is an ambrosia beetle native to North America that has been introduced to Europe, where it was first detected in France in 1933. It excavates galleries in coniferous sapwood and maintains an obligate symbiosis with the fungus Endomycopsis fasciculata, which adults inoculate into wood and which serves as the primary food source for both larvae and adults. In Central Europe, it completes two generations per year, with adult flight beginning in early May and F2 generation adults overwintering in wood. Despite nearly a century of presence in Europe and its association with economically important conifers including Picea and Pinus, it has not caused significant damage, functioning primarily as a secondary pest of decaying or previously infested trees.
Scolytodes
Scolytodes is a genus of small bark beetles in the tribe Ctenophorini, distributed throughout the Neotropics from Mexico to South America. Many species are associated with specific host plants, particularly Cecropia and Ficus, with some exhibiting ambrosia beetle behavior involving fungal cultivation in galleries. The genus has undergone extensive taxonomic revision, with numerous new species described from Central and South America in recent decades.