Abstract
Effective locust and grasshopper control is crucial as locust invasions have seriously threatened crops and food security since ancient times. However, the preponderance of chemical insecticides, effective and widely used today, is increasingly criticized as a result of their adverse effects on human health and the environment. Alternative biological control methods are being actively sought to replace chemical pesticides. Nosema locustae (Synonyms: Paranosema locustae, Antonospora locustae), a protozoan pathogen of locusts and grasshoppers, was developed as a biological control agent as early as the 1980s. Subsequently, numerous studies have focused on its pathogenicity, host spectrum, mass production, epizootiology, applications, genomics, and molecular biology. Aspects of recent advances in N. locustae show that this entomopathogen plays a special role in locust and grasshopper management because it is safer, has a broad host spectrum of 144 orthopteran species, vertical transmission to offspring through eggs, long persistence in locust and grasshopper populations for more than 10 years, and is well adapted to various types of ecosystems in tropical and temperate regions. However, some limitations still need to be overcome for more efficient locust and grasshopper management in the future.
Highlights
There are many natural enemies of Locust and grasshopper (L&G) [2,3,4], only a few have been developed as biological control agents or potential agents, including the microsporidian Nosema locustae and the fungus Metarhizium acridum, both of which have been quite widely used in the control of L&G
The results showed that there was no risk to honey bees per os at the maximum exposure dose tested, no deaths in the five animal species tested in the contact toxicity experiments, and N. locustae was relatively safe for nontarget beneficial organisms in the environment [33]
Reduced vitellogenin was observed in fourth-instar nymphs of L. migratoria manilensis inoculated with N. locustae: vitellogenin levels in the fat body, hemolymph, and ovaries were very low compared to the control [43]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Traditional control of L&G consists mainly of the application of chemical pesticides, which often results in many side effects. These include toxic chemical residues on food, adverse health effects on humans and nontarget animals, and environmental pollution. L&G control, N. locustae has been studied extensively [1,13,14,15,16,17]. There has been a renewed interest in N. locustae, mainly due to work in China, where it is produced in large quantities and used extensively, and Argentina, where its long-term persistence appears to reduce the frequency and intensity of grasshopper outbreaks [18].
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