Entomopathogenic fungi in soils from Alicante province [Spain]

Abstract

We have used Galleria mellonella (Linnaeus, 1758) larvae as a bait for detecting insect pathogens in soils from Alicante(SE Spain). Soil from 61 sites was collected including agricultural fields, forests and a mediterranean shrub(Nerium oleander L.) growing under natural or garden environments. The most frequently insect pathogens found werefungi (32.8% soils), being Beauveria bassiana (Bals.) Vuill (21% soils) the species most abundant. Metarhiziumanisopliae (Metschn.) Sorok (6.4%) and Lecanicillium lecanii (Zimm.) Gams [= Verticillium lecanii Zimm.] (4.8%)were less frequent. B. bassiana also scored the highest infection percentage in a single soil sample (ca. 90% of insectsinfected), and was also the most frequent (77.8%) entomopathogenic fungus detected in soils under N. oleander.

Diversity of Entomopathogenic Fungi in Argane Forest Soil and Their Potential to Manage Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Ceratitis capitata)

“…Entomopathogenic fungi were detected in all the 9 sub-simples analyzed (100%). Comparable results were found in the Moroccan endemic forests of Argania spinosa (91.62%) [16], but higher than in other countries: over 71.7% in Spain [28,34], 55.5% in China [35], 43% in Southern Italy [36], 33.6% in Palestine [37], 20.59% in Turkey [22] and 17.5% in the UK [21]. These comparisons must be taken with precautions because in all this studies the numbers and the type of larvae and number of repetitions used to trap entomopathogenic fungi from soil samples were different.…”

Effects of Combining Microbial and Chemical Insecticides on Mortality of the Pecan Weevil (Coleoptera: Curculionidae)

“…Beauveria bassiana isolates from diverse sources, including naturally infected RPW from Mediterranean habitats (close to RPW outbreaks), were evaluated (Asensio et al 2003). This is the first approach based on multiple-isolate selection for developing a formulation to target RPW, since other studies reporting the effect of entomopathogenic fungi on RPW have just tested 1 isolate (El-Sufty et al 2007;Dembilio et al 2010).…”

“…The genetic variability among isolates can be expressed as differences in virulence (Kryukov et al 2010) and in resistance to adverse environmental factors such as extreme temperature (Fernandes et al 2008) and UV-radiation (Fernandes et al 2007). In a previous study (Asensio et al 2003) we determined that B. bassiana is the most abundant entomopathogen in soils from SE Spain, where palm groves are common. Subsequently, we isolated B. bassiana from RPW naturally infested in palm groves in E and SE Spain (Güerri-Agulló et al 2010).…”

Diversity of Entomopathogenic Fungi in Argane Forest Soil and Their Potential to Manage Mediterranean Fruit Fly (Ceratitis capitata)

“…In order to isolate EF, two methods have been adopted according to the condition of the dead insect [28][29][30]. Firstly, dead insects (larvae, pupae and adults) of C. Capitata were observed using a dissecting microscope.…”