Abstract
The red flour beetle (Tribolium castaneum) is one of the main pests infecting cereals and causes damage to stored grains. Many pests, including beetles, are susceptible to infection by naturally occurring insect-pathogenic fungi (entomopathogenic fungi). In the present study, wheat flour collected from the local markets in the Jazan region of Saudi Arabia and dead bodies of T. castaneum adults were separated. The fungi associated with these insect dead bodies were identified. The result concluded that the most dominant fungi were Beauveria bassiana (61.67%) and Verticillium lecanii (38.33%). Fungi showed different stages of infection, such as adhesion, spore germination and mycelium colonization in the insect cadavers, as illustrated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The deformations, mycelium extortion and colonization, decomposition and erosion of the cuticle occurring in the different parts of the insects' cadavers were recorded by SEM. The results showed the presence of entomopathogenic fungi B. bassiana or V. lecanii on T. castaneum, as well as the susceptibility of T. castaneum adults to these fungi. Key words: Stored wheat flour; Tribolium castaneum, Beauveria bassiana, Verticillium lecanii; scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Highlights
Tribolium castaneum Herbst 1797 (Coleoptera: Tenebrio dae), is a cosmopolitan and serious pest of cereal grains and their products
Results showed the percentage of spreading of the fungi over the Tribolium castaneum cadaver surface was 61.67% with B. bassiana and 38.33% with V. lecanii (Table 1)
The authors of the previous study (Bosly and El-Banna, 2015) isolated nine fungal species belonging to eight fungal genera from the surface of dead bodies of T. castaneum separated from stored wheat flour collected from Jazan markets
Summary
Tribolium castaneum Herbst 1797 (Coleoptera: Tenebrio dae), is a cosmopolitan and serious pest of cereal grains and their products. Considered to be important mortality factors for insects and were identified based on the fungal growth observed on insect cadavers. They have been proposed as biological control agents of insects (Vega et al, 2009; Wakil et al, 2014; Lacey et al, 2015). The present study was aimed to investigate the surface topography of the T. castaneum dead bodies and their fungi adherence and germination, which were isolated from the wheat flour samples collected from Jazan region markets, with the help of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) technique
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