Mortalities induced by entomopathogenic fungus

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Date
2011-05Author
Hedimbi, Marius
Kaaya, GP
Chinsembu, Kazhila C
Type
ArticleLanguage
enMetadata
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The objective of this study was to compare the infectivity of Metarhizium anisopliae at a
concentration of 1 × 108 conidia/ml to developmental stages of Amblyomma variegatum,
Rhipicephalus appendiculatus and Rhipicephalus evertsi evertsi in oil and water formulations. The
fungus, M. anisopliae, induced 50-100% mortalities in all developmental stages of the tick species
tested. R. e. evertsi was more susceptible to M. anisopliae than the other two tick species. However,
there was no clear difference in mortality between fed and unfed instars of different tick species.
Furthermore, engorged adults were more susceptible than unfed adult ticks. Oil formulated conidia
induced significantly higher mortalities (P<0.05) than water formulated conidia. The results indicate
that the type of conidia formulation is critical to the performance of fungi as biological control agents
for ticks.
URI
http://interesjournal.org/IRJM/Pdf/2011/May/Hedimbi%20et%20al.pdfhttp://erepository.uonbi.ac.ke:8080/xmlui/handle/123456789/35681
Citation
International Research Journal of Microbiology Vol. 2(4) pp. 141-145, May 2011Publisher
University of Nairobi. School of Biological Sciences