Diversity of entomopathogenic fungi associated with Mediterranean fruit fly (Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae)) in Moroccan Argan forests and nearby area: impact of soil factors on their distribution.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Hallouti, Ayoub Ait Hamza, Mohamed Zahidi, Abdelaziz Ait Hammou, Rachid Bouharroud, Rachid Ait Ben Aoumar, Abdellah Boubaker, Hassan
Abstract	BackgroundStudying the ecology of biocontrol-agents is a prerequisite to effectively control medfly (Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae)) with entomopathogenic fungi. In this context, factors affecting the occurrence and distribution of medfly-associated entomopathogenic-fungi were studied. Soil samples (22) were collected from natural and cultivated areas of Souss-region Morocco.ResultsA total of 260 fungal isolates belonging to 22 species and 10 genera were obtained by using medfly pupae as bait. Medfly-associated fungi were detected in all studied soils and pupae infection percentages ranged from 3.33% to 48%. Two genera, Fusarium and Beauveria were the most frequent with 83 isolates (32%) and 50 isolates (19.23%) respectively. Pathogenicity test of isolated species against medfly pupae showed high mortality rates up to 91% for some strains. Principal component analysis (PCA) demonstrated a strong influence of origin, physical, and chemical properties of soil on the abundance of these fungi. In general, medfly-associated fungi were more abundant in soils with moderate pH (7.5 to 8) having high sand and organic content. High relative humidity negatively influenced the abundance of these fungi. Both factors directly affected the fungal infection percentages in pupae. The response of fungi to these parameters varied among species. According to principal component analysis (PCA), the soils of argan fields and forests were more suitable for the development of medfly-associated fungi than citrus orchards.ConclusionsThese results guide identifying suitable soils for the effective application of entomopathogenic fungi as biological control agents. In summary, isolated indigenous strains seem to be a promising option to control C. capitata.
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Journal	BMC Ecology [BMC Ecol]
Volume Number	20
DOI	10.1186/s12898-020-00334-2
PubMed Central reference number	PMC7684748
Issue Number	1
PubMed reference number	33234114
e-ISSN	14726785
Language	English
Publisher	BioMed Central
Publisher Date	2020-11-24
Publisher Place	London
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data. © The Author(s) 2020
Subject Keyword	Entomopathogenic fungi Communities Soil ecology Ceratitis capitata Biological control
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Environmental Science Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics