Microbes on forest-eating pest could be a boon in fight against resistant infections.  The pine beetles that are massacring forests across the continent may soon prove a boon to human health, a new study in the prestigious journal Science suggests.  In particular, the exotic bacteria and fungi that the destructive pests carry on their bodies could prove a treasure trove in the search for new antibiotic medications, the study's authors argue.

"I'm very enthusiastic, I think it's essentially an ideal way to find new molecules with desirable (antibiotic) activities," says study co-author Jon Clardy, a biological chemist at the Harvard Medical School.

"No one has ever looked where we're looking and that is what I think is important," says Clardy, the Hsien Wu and Daisy Yen Wu Professor at the Cambridge, Mass. school.

Specifically the researchers were looking at the Southern Pine Beetle, a close relative of the Mountain Pine variety that is killing off vast tracts of British Columbia's forests.

These pine beetles burrow into the bark of the conifer trees, where they lay eggs and produce larvae that feed on the plant's life-giving outer layer.

But the study found this simple process was far more complex than originally thought, with the beetle and its tree-destroying offspring also being dependent on a pair of microbes to survive.

These microbes, an antibiotic-producing bacteria and a fungus, are born within the mother beetle and injected into the tree to allow the larvae to survive.

Cameron Currie, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Wisconsin and a study co-author, explains that the microscopic fungus must interact with the tree bark before the implanted larvae can use it for food.

"The fungi provide nutrients and help overcome the host defence of the tree," says Currie, an Edmonton native who earned his doctoral degree at the University of Toronto.

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