Conifer bark beetles are well known to be associated with fungal complexes, which consist of pathogenic ophiostomatoid fungi as well as obligate saprotroph species. However, there is little information on fungi associated with Ips acuminatus in central and eastern Europe. The aim of the study was to investigate the composition of the fungal communities associated with the pine engraver beetle, I. acuminatus, in the forest-steppe zone in Ukraine and to evaluate the pathogenicity of six associated ophiostomatoid species by inoculating three-year-old Scots pine seedlings with these fungi. In total, 384 adult beetles were collected from under the bark of declining and dead Scots pine trees at two different sites. Fungal culturing from 192 beetles resulted in 447 cultures and direct sequencing of ITS rRNA from 192 beetles in 496 high-quality sequences. Identification of the above revealed that the overall fungal community was composed of 60 species. Among these, the most common were Entomocorticium sp. (24.5%), Diplodia pinea (24.0%), Ophiostoma ips (16.7%), Sydowia polyspora (15.1%), Graphilbum cf rectangulosporium (15.1%), Ophiostoma minus (13.8%) and Cladosporium pini-ponderosae (13.0%). Pathogenicity tests were done using six species of ophiostomatoid fungi, which were inoculated into Scots pine seedlings. All ophiostomatoid fungi tested successfully infected seedlings of Scots pine with varying degrees of virulence. Ophiostoma minus was the only fungus that caused dieback in inoculated seedlings. It is concluded that I. acuminatus vectors a species-rich fungal community including pathogens such as D. pinea and O. minus. The fungal community reported in the present study is different from that reported in other regions of Europe. Pathogenicity tests showed that O. minus was the most virulent causing dieback in seedlings of Scots pine, while other fungi tested appeared to be only slightly pathogenic or completely non-pathogenic., Kateryna Davydenko, Rimvydas Vasaitis, Audrius Menkis., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The question of whether a government works well or poorly is not just a matter of concern for the citizens of whatever region that government governs; it is also of interest to scientists and analysts in a variety of fields. However, information about a government's performance is of use to the government itself. This article tries to answer the question of how government performance can be measured. It is impossible to come up with a generally acceptable and universal system of performance measurement, but the dozens of ways of measuring government performance can essentially be divided into four groups. The first group of approaches uses indicators of the socio-economic development in the governed area to measure a government's performance. The second group of approaches comprises attempts to measure government performance by means of a subjective evaluation by citizens of the governed territory or by various experts. The third group of approaches includes all attempts at measuring government performance that focus on procedural and institutional effectiveness and the quality of government performance. The last group is made up of attempts to measure government performance with the aid of aggregate indexes, which are mathematical-statistical aggregates of subindicators representing various forms of government activity, the conditions in the territory governed by the government, and a subjective evaluation of government performance by citizens, by the people in government themselves, and by various experts. Individual sub-indicators characterise various types of government activity, and it is their aggregate that measures overall government performance.