How Megaplatypus mutatus behaves inside a trunk? Studying its galleries via Computerized Axial Tomography and Digital Images Processing

COSTALES, YASMIL; CECILIA CARMARAN; A. E. DOLINKO; CERIANI NAKAMURAKARE, ESTEBAN

Portoro?

Congreso; 63rdInternational Convention of Portoro?; 2020

Portoro?

Megaplatypus mutatus (syn. Platypus sulcatus), an ambrosia beetle native to South America, is one of the main forest pests in Argentina and an emergent foreign pest in Europe, representing a potential risk to forest and fruit plantations due to its low specificity.Special attention has been given to poplar plantations as a result of the high economic impact. This ambrosia beetle attacks vigoroushosts producing multiple attacks per tree, triggering a structural weakening and eventually causes the breakdown of the tree trunk; especially when weather conditions are unfavorable. Even though the relevance of understanding the microhabitat where this complex system develops, this is the first comprehensive study that characterizes the galleries of this forest pest analyzing the topology of tunnels, the implications in the wood structure and the reproduction of M. mutatus. In this context, two commercial plantations were sampled where we studied 28 attacked treeswith a Philips-MX16-slice tomographer, generating ≈ 5200 slides. A special computer algorithm that allows isolating the galleries from the rest of the image was specially developed. This allowed characterizing with high precision the geometry, dimensions and topological properties of the galleries in all the samples, as well as, a 3D visualization of the structure. The impacts of the obtained results in the frame of the pathogenic system are discussed.