Virulence of Some Entomopathogenic Fungi Isolates of Beauveria bassiana (Hypocreales: Cordycipitaceae) and Metarhizium anisopliae (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) to Aulacaspis tubercularis (Hemiptera: Diaspididae)and Icerya seychellarum (Hemiptera: Monophlebidae) on Mango Crop

Abstract

Six fungal isolates of Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin and one isolate of Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) Sorokin were isolated and evaluated for their pathogenicity to Icerya seychellarum (Westwood) and Aulacaspis tubercularis Newstead. There is a positive correlation between the concentration of the fungal blastospore concentrations and the percentage of mortality. Bio-efficacy increased significantly after inoculation with increasing concentration of blastospores and elapsed time up to 12 d after inoculation. The mortality of nymphs exposed to fungal isolates at various concentrations varied between 2.5 and 88.8%. Probit analysis of data at 95% confidence limits of LC50 and LT50s showed significant differences in the susceptibility of nymphs of I. seychellarum and A. tubercularis to the tested fungal isolates. The fungal isolates of Egy-6 and Egy-9 were the most effective against I. seychellarum and A. tubercularis, respectively. They had the lowest LC50 (4.20 × 105 and 5.71 × 103 blastospore ml−1) and LT50 (ranged from 4.61 to 9.79 and 4.84 to 8.71 d), respectively. The current study showed that all the fungal isolates yielded moderate mortality rates of nymphs and adult female populations of both the tested insect pests. To our knowledge, this is the first report of bio-efficacy of Beauveria and Metarhizium isolates against members of the Diaspidadae and Monophlebidae family insects. These results establish that the use of these native entomopathogenic fungi isolates of B. bassiana (Egy-3, Egy-4, Egy-6, Egy-7, Egy-9, and Egy-10) and M. anisopliae (Egy-5) could be considered for further development as microbial control agents of the mealybug and scale insects as a potential biological agent for use in an IPM program.

Predicting the habitat suitability of the invasive white mango scale, Aulacaspis tubercularis; Newstead, 1906 (Hemiptera: Diaspididae) using bioclimatic variables

“…One hundred and sixteen records were obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) 34 and 58 records from the Centre for Agriculture and Bioscience International (CABI) invasive species compendium 2 . The remaining records were obtained from published literature 7,8,11,13–16,18–20,35–51 . The geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) of these records were verified using the Google Earth platform (https://www.google.com/earth/).…”

“…2 The remaining records were obtained from published literature. 7,8,11,[13][14][15][16][18][19][20][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] The geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) of these records were verified using the Google Earth platform (https://www.google.com/earth/). We then used the R package spThin to filter these points to reduce the spatial autocorrelation.…”

“…Since 2010, A. tubercularis has received considerable attention in various countries as an emerging pest of mango due to its economic importance. 11,13 These countries include Spain, 14 Mexico, 11 Egypt, 15 Argentina, 16 Ethiopia, 17,18 India, China, Pakistan, 6 and South Africa 19 among others. 1,4 For instance, in Mexico, A. tubercularis is ranked as the second most damaging pest of mango after the fruit flies complex, which causes 33% of the fruits damage.…”

Potential of Turkish Beauveria bassiana isolates for the management of the polyphagous planthopper, Orosanga japonica Melichar 1898 (Hemiptera: Ricaniidae)

“…EPFs can be adapted to their environmental conditions such as certain climatic conditions and habitat types (Sayed and Dunlap 2019). Therefore, it is very important to isolate and identify native natural fungal strains on dead insects to control pests in the relevant areas.…”

Molecular identification and efficacy of entomopathogenic fungi isolates against larvae of the Asian corn borer Ostrinia furnacalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) in Xinjiang, China

“…Entomopathogenic fungi (EPF), such as Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin, Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) Sorokin, Aspergillus nomius (Kurtzman) Horn & Hesseltine, Verticillium lecanii (Zimmerman) Viegas and Isaria fumosorosea Wize, are natural enemies of insect pests that can reduce the need for synthetic pesticides (Batool et al, 2020; Davidson & Chandler, 2005; Jaber et al, 2016). The effectiveness of insect control by EPF is largely dependent on host‐related environmental factors and differences in isolated strains (Sayed & Dunlap, 2019; Sevim et al, 2010). This is supported by research confirming that the virulence of indigenous EPF strains is higher than that of commercial strains due to genetic variability within certain geographic distributions (Nussenbaum & Lecuona, 2012).…”