Abstract
Entomopathogenic fungi are gaining acceptance in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems as effective and environmental safety biological control agents to protect a great variety of crops against pest insects. Many of these insect-pathogenic fungi can establish themselves as endophytes and thereby may induce the plant immune system. The activation of plant defenses by the fungal endophytic colonization can have a direct impact on herbivores and plant pathogens. An integral component of many plant defense responses is also the release of volatile organic compounds, which may serve as an indirect defense by attracting the natural enemies of herbivores. Here we investigated the effect of endophytic colonization by the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana on the volatile emission by melon and cotton plants, either unharmed or after being damaged by sap-sucking aphids or leaf chewing caterpillars. We found that when the plants are colonized by B. bassiana they emit a different blend of volatile compounds compared to uncolonized control plants. Some of the emitted compounds have been reported previously to be released in response to herbivory and have been implicated in natural enemy attraction. Several of the compounds are also known to have antimicrobial properties. Therefore, endophytic colonization by B. bassiana might help to not only direct control insect pests but also increase the resistance of plants against agronomically important pests and phytopathogens.
Highlights
Entomopathogenic fungi represent a large group of fungal species whose special feature is that they naturally infect and control insect populations
We addressed the effect of the endophytic colonization by the entomopathogenic fungus B. bassiana on the volatile emission at different time points after colonization of melon and cotton plants, and how these emissions further changed after the plants were damaged by sap-sucking aphids and leaf chewing caterpillars
Satisfactory classification performances were achieved for both models optimized for four components with a balanced error rate (BER) of 0.18 ± 0.05 (i) and 0.16 ± 0.04 (ii), as it is shown in Supplementary Table 2
Summary
Entomopathogenic fungi represent a large group of fungal species whose special feature is that they naturally infect and control insect populations They are gaining acceptance in Integrated Pest Management (IPM) systems, where they can serve as effective and environmental safety biological control agents of a great variety of crop pests (Zimmermann, 2007; Lacey and Shapiro-Ilan, 2008; Lacey et al, 2015; QuesadaMoraga, 2020) Besides their main habitats, soil and insect cadavers, they have recently been found to establish interesting plant associations (Meyling and Eilenberg, 2007; Vega et al, 2009; Quesada-Moraga, 2020). Certain endophytic fungi have been reported to emit VOCs that promote growth and influence the defense responses of their host plants (Strobel et al, 2011; Li et al, 2014; Shikano et al, 2017)
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