Pathogenicity of native isolates of entomopathogenic fungi Beauveria and Metharizium genera on Microcerotermes diversus (Blattodea: Termitidae) in the laboratory Haydar Al-Farhani, Reyhaneh Darsouei, Shokoofeh Kamali, Gholamhossein Moravvej & Javad Karimi International Journal of Tropical Insect Science e-ISSN 1742-7592 Int J Trop Insect Sci DOI 10.1007/s42690-020-00347-w 1 23 Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by African Association of Insect Scientists. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be self- archived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. 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The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com”. 1 23 Author's personal copy International Journal of Tropical Insect Science https://doi.org/10.1007/s42690-020-00347-w ORIGINAL RESEARCH ARTICLE Pathogenicity of native isolates of entomopathogenic fungi Beauveria and Metharizium genera on Microcerotermes diversus (Blattodea: Termitidae) in the laboratory Haydar Al-Farhani1 & Reyhaneh Darsouei1 & Shokoofeh Kamali1 & Gholamhossein Moravvej1 & Javad Karimi1 Received: 19 July 2019 /Revised: 20 October 2020 /Accepted: 23 October 2020 # African Association of Insect Scientists 2020 Abstract Microcerotermes diversus Silvestri (Blattodea: Termitidae) is a worldwide destructive termite whose control by conventional methods is often difficult. Biological control using entomopathogenic fungi could be an alternative management strategy. Two species of entomopathogenic fungi, Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana, isolated from natural habitats of Mashhad and Lahijan regions, Iran. The fungi were characterized based on sequences of ITS gene as well as classic data. Then, the infectivity of both isolates of M. anisopliae and B. bassiana in different concentrations (1 × 104,1×105,1×106,1×107,and1× 108 conidia/ml) were evaluated under laboratory conditions by two methods, including spray and pipetting against termite, M. diversus. Both entomopathogenic fungi species were capable of infecting and killing M. divesrus. In the pipetting method, 5 6 the LC50 value for B. bassiana and M. anisopliae calculated 8.03 × 10 (conidia/ml) and 1.03 × 10 (conidia/ml), respectively. But in the spray method, the effect of M. anisopliae on M. diversus was more than B. bassiana. The LC50 value in the spray method for B. bassiana and M. anisopliae was 3.52 × 107 (conidia/ml) and 1.65 × 106 (conidia/ml). The mortality caused by the fungus was dose-dependent, with the highest mortality recorded at the highest concentration. In the pipetting method, the mortality rate for B. bassiana and M. anisopliae was 0 to 97.5% and 0 to 100% at 8 day post infection. In the spray method, the mortality percentage for B. bassiana was from 2.5 to 72.5% and for M. anisopliae was 0 to100% by 4 days post-infection. The results of this study indicated that B. bassiana and M. anisopliae are potentially useful biological control agents for M. diversus. Future studies with field trails will provide a confident approach toward termite management. Keywords Entomopathogenic fungi . Beauveria bassiana . Insect pathology . Metarhizium anisopliae . Termites Introduction Microcerotermes diversus is the most destructive termite in middle East on date palms in Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia Termites (Isoptera) are critical foresty, agriculture, and house- (Cheraghi et al. 2013). hold pests (Balachander et al. 2009). They damage dead Different methods were applied to control termites, such as woody materials (Balachander et al. 2009). Sometimes, their physical, cultural, chemical, and biological methods activity can cause severe economic damage (Rath 2000). (Ravindran et al. 2015). Various organochlorine/cyclodiene Prevention of termite damage is complicated because their insecticides such as Aldrin, Dieldrin, Chlordane, and population is very high, and their cryptic behavior. Heptachlor are used to control termites. But some of them The important genera of termites in Iran are Amitermes, are now banned because of their bioaccumulation and the Microcerotermes (Termitidae), Anacanthotermes effect on non-target insects (Singha et al. 2011). The use of (Hodotermitidae), and Psammotermes (Rhinotermitidae) some organophosphorus insecticides has limitations. (Cheraghi et al. 2013). Previously, it has been indicated that Chlorpyriphos is an organophosphosphate compound that is expensive and toxic to the environment (Arora and Arora 1995). Logan et al. (1990) suggested using non-chemical for * Javad Karimi termite control. [email protected] Biological control with entomopathogenic fungi protects 1 Department of Plant Protection, School of Agriculture, Ferdowsi non-target organisms (Lacey and Kaya, 2000), natural ene- University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran mies, and is safe for the environment (Pell et al. 2001). Author's personal copy Int J Trop Insect Sci Various groups of microorganisms, including extraction, an individual worker cast was used. DNA was entomopathogens with biological potential, are associated extracted using a 5% Chelex®100 solution (Karimi and with termite nests (Milner et al. 1998). The termites live in Darsouei 2014). Cytochrome oxidase subunit I gene was am- habitats with high humidity habitats as suitable niches for plified using C1J-1718 (forward) and C1N-2191 (reverse) fungal infection (Vargo et al. 2003. However, there are few primers as described by Simon et al. (1994). The PCR product limitations in the application of entomopathogenic fungi for was sequenced by Macrogen Company (South Korea, Seoul). the control of termites. The termites remove fungal conidial by The obtained sequence was checked using Nblast software for grooming. In addition, termites remove infected termites of quality, assembled, and then submitted in the GenBank. For the colony (Culliney and Grace 2000). This social behavior phylogenic analysis, 37 valid DNA sequences were provided might lead to increased resistance to pathogens in their colony form the GenBank. The sequences were aligned in Clustal X (Yanagawa and Shimizu, 2005). (ver. 2) (Larkin et al. 2007). The phylogenetic tree was recon- Numerous studies have been performed on the use of the structed using MEGA7 (Kumar et al. 2016) with 10,000 boot- fungi to control termites (Lacey and Kaya 2000;Wrightetal. straps (Felsenstein 1985) and neighbor-joining method 2005). Milner (2000) evaluated the effect of M. anisopliae on (Saitou and Nei 1987). termites. Wright et al. (2005) evaluated the impact of Complementary identification of termite has done using the M. anisopliae on Coptotermes formosanus. Yanagawa and classic approach. A morphological key was used to identify Shimizu (2007) determined the resistance of C. formosanus termite species. against M. ansiopliae by grooming. In another work, Paecilomyces sp. was used for the control of subterranean Entomopathogenic fungus termites (Eilenberg et al. 2001). It had been confirmed that M. diversus is the most crucial Isolation of entomopathogenic fungi termite in Ahwaz (Habibpour 1994, 2006). In Iran, in per- formed studies on the control of termites, Ghayourfar and The soil samples were collected from two regions in Iran. The Mohammadpour (2009) used Acid boric and Hexaflumuron first region, including Mashhad (Razavi Khorasan, Iran, to control subterranean termite in date palm orchards. In 2012, 36.2980° N, 59.6057° E) in NorthEast of Iran. The second Horizontal transmission of the M. anisopliae in M. diversus region of sampling was the North part (Lahijan, Guilan, was evaluated by Cheraghi et al. (2012). Rahimzadeh et al. 37.2071° N, 50.0034° E(. Different regions have sampled (2012) evaluated the pathogenicity of M. anisopliae on via soil sampling then surveyed by baiting technique using Microcerotermes gabrielis in the laboratory. Galleria mellonella larvae. The soil samples were surveyed The objectives of this research were isolation and charac- every 48 h. Dead G. mellonella larvae were placed into the terization of native entomopathogenic fungi from selected re- traps at 25 ± 1 °C, in the dark till the growth of the entomo- gions of Iran and then survey on their pathogenecity on pathogenic fungi. Then for the purification, some insect ca- Microcerotermes diversus. davers were sterilized in 70% ethanol and cultivated on PDA (Potato Dextrose Agar) medium and kept at 28 ± 1 °C for the future test (Darsouei et al. 2018). Materials and methods Characterization of entomopathogenic fungi Insect For molecular identification, the fungal isolates were cultured Insects collection on 20 ml liquid culture (Potato Dextrose Broth) and shaked for two weeks at room temperature. Then the mycelia were har- Thorough 2018–2019, different termite casts, M. diversus vested, eluted, and transferred into a sterile 1.5-ml microtube. were collected from palm orchards in Ahwaz (Khuzestan Genomic DNA was extracted with Pars Tous Kit (Cat Number province 31.4360° N, 49.0413° E). At first, wood damaged A101211; http://www.parstous.com). Then ITS region was with termites in palm orchards of the Ahwaz region were amplified and sequenced by using ITS4 and