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Highly virulent Beauveria bassiana strains against the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, show no pathogenicity against five phytoseiid mite species

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An Erratum to this article was published on 09 November 2016

Abstract

Entomopathogenic fungi and predatory mites can independently contribute to suppressing the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae Koch. It is important to assess the risk of possible fungal infections in predators when a combination of them are being considered as a tandem control strategy for suppressing T. urticae. The first part of this study tested 12 Beauveria bassiana isolates for virulence in T. urticae. Strains SCWJ-2, SDDZ-9, LNSZ-26, GZGY-1-3 and WLMQ-32 were found to be the most potent, causing 37.6–49.5% adult corrected mortality at a concentration of 1 × 107 m/L conidia 4 days post-treatment. The second part evaluated the pathogenicity of these five strains in five species of predatory phytoseiid mites. The bioassay results indicated that all adult predatory mite mortalities ranged from 7.5 to 9.1% 4 days post-treatment. No viable fungal hyphae were found on predator cadavers. Observations with scanning electron microscopy revealed that conidia were attached to the cuticle of predatory mites within 2–12 h after spraying with strain LNSZ-26, and had germinated within 24–36 h. After 48 h, conidia had gradually been shed from the mites, after none of the conidia had penetrated the cuticular surfaces. In contrast, the germinated conidia successfully penetrated the cuticle of T. urticae, and within 60 h the fungus colonized the mite’s body. Our study demonstrated that although several B. bassiana strains displayed a high virulence in T. urticae there was no evident pathogenicity to phytoseiid mites. These findings support the potential use of entomopathogenic fungus in combination with predatory mites in T. urticae control programs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Cecil L. Smith for helping with the language editing. We also thank Prof. Dr. Xiaoyue Hong for providing the spider mite T. urticae. This research was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (31501704) and China Agriculture Research System (CARS-25).

Author contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: SY. W, XN. X and ZR. L. Performed the experiments: SY. W, HC. X, MY. L Analyzed the data: SY. W. Wrote the paper: SY. W and ZR. L.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests, Institute of Plant Protection, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, 100193, People’s Republic of China

    Shengyong Wu, Xuenong Xu & Zhongren Lei

  2. College of Life Science and Technology, Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Qinhuangdao, 066000, People’s Republic of China

    Haicui Xie

  3. School of Plant Protection, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, 230036, People’s Republic of China

    Maoye Li

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  1. Shengyong Wu
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  2. Haicui Xie
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Correspondence to Shengyong Wu or Zhongren Lei.

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An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10493-016-0097-3.

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Wu, S., Xie, H., Li, M. et al. Highly virulent Beauveria bassiana strains against the two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, show no pathogenicity against five phytoseiid mite species. Exp Appl Acarol 70, 421–435 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10493-016-0090-x

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