Can Norway spruce trees be ‘vaccinated’ against attack by Ips typographus?

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Abstract
1 A field experiment was carried out to test the hypothesis that treatment of Norway spruce trees with the Ips typographus‐transmitted blue‐stain fungus Ceratocystis polonica enhances tree resistance to later mass attack by this bark beetle.2 Twenty‐five mature trees were pretreated by inoculating a non‐lethal dose of the fungus into the bark, while 18 trees served as untreated controls. Three and a half weeks after treatment a bark beetle attack was initiated by attaching dispensers with I. typographus pheromone to the tree trunks.3 A significantly larger proportion (67%) of the control trees than of the pretreated trees (36%) were killed by the beetle attack. The result is discussed in relation to recent results regarding defence mechanisms in Norway spruce trees.