Ambrosia fungi are

fungal A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from th ...

symbiont Symbiosis (from Greek , , "living together", from , , "together", and , bíōsis, "living") is any type of a close and long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms, be it mutualistic, commensalistic, or parasi ...

s of

ambrosia beetle Ambrosia beetles are beetles of the weevil subfamilies Scolytinae and Platypodinae ( Coleoptera, Curculionidae), which live in nutritional symbiosis with ambrosia fungi. The beetles excavate tunnels in dead, stressed, and healthy trees in wh ...

s including the polyphagous and Kuroshio shot hole borers. There are a few dozen species described ambrosia fungi, currently placed in

polyphyletic A polyphyletic group is an assemblage of organisms or other evolving elements that is of mixed evolutionary origin. The term is often applied to groups that share similar features known as homoplasies, which are explained as a result of conver ...

genera ''

Ambrosiella ''Ambrosiella'' is a genus of ambrosia fungi within the family Ceratocystidaceae. It was circumscribed by mycologists Josef Adolph von Arx and Grégoire L. Hennebert in 1965 with '' Ambrosiella xylebori'' as the type species. All ''Ambrosiella'' ...

'', '' Rafaellea'' and '' Dryadomyces'' (all from

Ophiostomatales The Ophiostomatales are an order of fungi in the class Sordariomycetes. They are commonly symbionts to insect species, which can be found in numerous cases, including some termites and many bark beetles A bark beetle is the common name for th ...

, Ascomycota). Probably many more species remain to be discovered. Little is known about ecology of ambrosia fungi, as well as about their specificity to ambrosia beetle species. Ambrosia fungi are thought to be dependent on transport and inoculation provided by their beetle symbionts, as they have not been found in any other habitat. All ambrosia fungi are probably asexual and clonal.Malloch, D., and M. Blackwell. 1993. Dispersal biology of ophiostomatoid fungi. p. 195–206. In: Ceratocystis and Ophiostoma: Taxonomy, Ecology and Pathology. Eds., Wingfield, M.J., K.A. Seifert, and J.F. Webber. APS, St. Paul.

References

Ophiostomatales {{Sordariomycetes-stub