Insect pests can cause enormous agricultural damage and destabilize ecosystems, with inherent economic and biological consequences. Developing efficient technologies to control pests is of utmost importance. To achieve this, appropriate biological models are essential to study the mechanisms of invasiveness. Pests can be indigenous but when they are exotic (i.e. introduced) they can be very aggressive and difficult to control due to empty niche opportunities and beneficial interspecific interactions. In China, the red turpentine beetle (Dendroctonus valens Leconte) offers an excellent model to study these interactions. D. valens is indigenous to North America, and was introduced to China 25 years ago. Since then, it has killed more than six million Chinese pines (Pinus armandii). D. valens success is likely the result of interactions with bacteria and fungi, but evidence supporting this is lacking. The proposed project aims to study basic chemical, physiological, and behavioral mechanisms that underlie the fungal facilitation of invasion in D. valens.