taxonID	type	description	language	source
C814F77BFF8EFFCA33F7FF034B61FD7A.taxon	description	LINDSAY A. DIMITRI Department of Biology University of Nevada – Reno Reno, NV 89512, U. S. A. lindsaydimitri @ hotmail. com AND MICHAEL A. IVIE Montana Entomology Collection 1911 West Lincoln Street Montana State University Bozeman, MT 59717, U. S. A. mivie @ montana. edu The surprise discovery of a rarely collected bostrichid living in juniper berries raises issues of bostrichid evolution, stored product pest pathways, and the ecology of juniper systems. As part of a study of Juniperus occidentalis Hooker (Cupressaceae), specimens of Stephanopachys conicola Fisher were reared from berries collected on the ground in California’ s Modoc County. Some implications of this discovery, as related to the above issues, are considered in the following discussion.	en	Tonkel, Kirk C., Rector, Brian G., Longland, William S., Dimitri, Lindsay A., Ivie, Michael A. (2014): Stephanopachys conicolaFisher (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae) Feeding on Decaying Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalisHooker) Berries: A Novel Association for Bostrichidae. The Coleopterists Bulletin 68 (3): 403-406, DOI: 10.1649/072.068.0311, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1649/072.068.0311
C814F77BFF8EFFCA33F7FF034B61FD7A.taxon	description	Stephanopachys has been considered unlikely to produce a stored product pest because of the limited use of gymnosperm products as foodstuffs. Two such food items of trade value include edible pine nuts and juniper berries, the latter used primarily in the manufacture of gin but also as a spice, an herbal dietary supplement, and potpourri ingredient. The juniper berry is in actuality a female cone with fused scales. Ripe berries on trees of J. occidentalis are high in carbohydrate content, recorded as near 50 % of dry weight — mainly sugars (Poddar and Lederer 1982). This finding suggests that much of the sugar in juniper berries is converted to starch after they drop from the tree and desiccate, based on the typically starchy diet of bostrichids, although there is no empirical data to support this hypothesis at present. The discovery of a Stephanopachys infesting juniper berries from the ground is surprising and yet, in hindsight, conforms to the pattern seen throughout the Dinoderinae. The nine members of the genus Stephanopachys known to occur in North America all attack conifers (Fisher 1950). Stephanopachys conicola Fisher (Fig. 1) is perhaps the rarest of these species and was the last to be described (Fisher 1950). It was described from one specimen (holotype) found “ on ” a white fir, Abies concolor (Gordon and Glendhill) Lindley ex Hillebrand (Pinaceae), at Williams, in central Arizona, and six individuals (paratypes) “ from ” cones of singleleaf pinyon, Pinus monophylla Torrey and Fremont (Pinaceae), by J. E. Patterson in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California (Fisher 1950). However, examination of these six paratypes in the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC by MAI revealed that those individuals were actually collected at Baldwin Lake, San Bernardino National Forest, California, by J. E. Patterson and S. T. Carlson. These paratypes would be six of the 13 adults reported by Keen (1958), erroneously as Stephanopachys sobrinus Casey, that were “ collected and reared from beetle-killed cones of singleleaf pinyon ” collected on 28 March 1938 with scattered emergence occurring until 20 June 1938. The other seven specimens are housed in the Western Forest Insect Collection, now incorporated into the Oregon State University Arthropod Collection, Corvallis, OR. Those specimens bear a determination label without a date by W. S. Fisher as Stephanopachys sobrinus (Casey) (?). It was assumed that larvae were feeding on dry cone tissues. Other than the specimens reported herein, in the course of identifying thousands of bostrichids from various museums and projects over the last 30 years, MAI has seen only one specimen beyond the type series. That specimen is from “ West Utah Lake, Utah Co, Utah, ” collected 27 December 1971 by D. K. Johnson using a Berlese funnel (specimen in the Montana Entomology Collection (MTEC )). This locality is probably on or near Lake Mountain, west of Utah Lake. No known collections of S. conicola report J. occidentalis berries as a host, but all known locations of collection are inhabited by various species of juniper. Rocky Mountain juniper, Juniperus scopulorum Sarg., is common on Lake Mountain, Utah (Bullock 1951). The San Bernardino Mountains are home to Sierra juniper, Juniperus occidentalis var. australis (Vasek) A. Holmgren and N. Holmgren, and California juniper, Juniperus californica Carrière (Mohlenbrock 2006). Pinyon pine, Pinus edulis Engelm., Utah juniper, Juniperus osteosperma (Torr.) Little, oneseed juniper, Juniperus monosperma (Engelm.) Sarg., and Rocky Mountain juniper are found in woodlands of the Kaibab National Forest in central Arizona near Williams (Mohlenbrock 2006). As part of a study of J. occidentalis seed ecology, berries and litter were collected from three sites in northeastern California (Madeline, Shinn Peak, and Likely; all in Modoc Co., CA) in 2011 and 2012. Collection sites were in sagesteppe habitat dominated by J. occidentalis and Wyoming big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis Beetle and Young (Asteraceae), along with varying amounts of native perennial grasses, invasive annual grasses, and forbs. Litter, including fallen berries, was collected from beneath individual J. occidentalis trees at the Likely site (41.23185 °, - 120.42523 ° elevation 1,267 m) on 4 February 2011 into separate 3.8 - L (one-gallon) Ziplock ® bags. Berries were isolated from litter by hand and transferred to paperboard rearing chambers (28 × 23 × 10.5 cm) with a cylindrical 12 - dram, clear plastic vial inserted into the side of the box to collect emerging adult insects. Four hundred forty berries from the litter beneath one tree were moved to the chamber on 9 February 2011 and maintained at room temperature from February 2011 to January 2014. Only the sample from Likely produced S. conicola. Sixty adult S. conicola were reared from the collection chamber. Only five of these adults migrated to the collection vial, with all others dying as adults within the rearing box. Feeding by developing S. conicola resulted in consumption of the resinous husk (or “ fruit ”) and the seed, leaving partially consumed, frass-filled skins of the consumed berries (Fig. 2). Six additional rearing chambers with berries from the Likely site and the two other sites 20 km (Madeline site) and 60 km (Shinn Peak site) south of Likely produced no adult S. conicola. Rearing boxes containing only litter (i. e., without berries) from the three sites produced no S. conicola. Given that no other rearing boxes containing berries from the Likely site yielded adult beetles, and live adults were found one-and-a-half years after collection, these 60 adults may represent multiple generations. This suggests that the potential exists for this insect to act as a pest of stored juniper berries destined for various culinary purposes, in addition to being a novel association for this insect. Parasitoids emerging from the rearing chamber containing berries infested by S. conicola included: one Goniozus sp. (Hymenoptera: Bethylidae), which emerged 15 February 2011; one unidentified pteromalid (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) that emerged 24 February 2011; and one Euderus sp. (Hymenoptera: Eulophidae), which emerged 1 March 2011. These parasitoids have also been reared from berries collected at other sites, and possibly attacked other insect species inhabiting these berries, although no additional potential host insect species emerged from the rearing chamber. Voucher specimens of the bostrichids are deposited at the Montana State University Montana Entomology Collection (MTEC), Bozeman, MT; the USDA-ARS Great Basin Rangelands Research Unit, Reno, NV; KCT personal collection; and the Nevada State Dept. of Agriculture. Parasitoid vouchers are deposited in the USDA-ARS Great Basin Rangelands Research Unit, Reno, NV.	en	Tonkel, Kirk C., Rector, Brian G., Longland, William S., Dimitri, Lindsay A., Ivie, Michael A. (2014): Stephanopachys conicolaFisher (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae) Feeding on Decaying Western Juniper (Juniperus occidentalisHooker) Berries: A Novel Association for Bostrichidae. The Coleopterists Bulletin 68 (3): 403-406, DOI: 10.1649/072.068.0311, URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1649/072.068.0311
