Insect pathogenic fungi in biological control: status and future challenges

Summary

In Europe, insect pathogenic fungi have in decades played a significant role in biological control of insects. With respect to the different strategies of biological control and with respects to the different genera of insect pathogenic fungi, the success and potential vary, however. Classical biological control: no strong indication of potential. Inundation and inoculation biological control: success stories with the genera Metarhizium, Beauveria, Isaria/Paecilomyces and Lecanicillium (previously Verticillium). However, the genotypes employed seem to include a narrow spectrum of the many potentially useful genotypes. Conservation biological control: Pandora and Entomophthora have a strong potential, but also Beauveria has a potential to be explored further. The main bottleneck for further exploitation of insect pathogenic fungi in biological control is the limited knowledge of host pathogen interaction at the fungal genotype level.