Abstract
Entomophthoralean fungi are insect pathogenic fungi and are characterized by their active discharge of infective conidia that infect insects. Our aim was to study the effects of temperature on the discharge and to characterize the variation in the associated temporal pattern of a newly discovered Pandora species with focus on peak location and shape of the discharge. Mycelia were incubated at various temperatures in darkness, and conidial discharge was measured over time. We used a novel modification of a statistical model (pavpop), that simultaneously estimates phase and amplitude effects, into a setting of generalized linear models. This model is used to test hypotheses of peak location and discharge of conidia. The statistical analysis showed that high temperature leads to an early and fast decreasing peak, whereas there were no significant differences in total number of discharged conidia. Using the proposed model we also quantified the biological variation in the timing of the peak location at a fixed temperature.
Highlights
Fungi are important as biological control agents, and their effect is due to their infective spores [1]
The conidia of entomophthoralean fungi are discharged with fluid from the conidiophore, which further assist the conidium to stick to host cuticle after landing [4, 5]
The scale parameter for the warp covariance was estimated to be 0.026; this corresponds to a standard deviation of around 3.1 hours on temporal displacement, or a 95% prediction interval of roughly 6 hours
Summary
Fungi are important as biological control agents, and their effect is due to their infective spores [1]. The mechanisms for spore releases differ among fungal taxons, one mechanism is shooting off spores as found in fungus order Entomophthorales, which are insect and mite pathogens. Conidia are the infective units of entomophthoralean fungi, and for the majority of species they are actively discharged [2]. The large conidia (mostly between 15 and 40 microns in length) in Entomophthorales demands high energy to be discharged. The infection success depends, among other things, on the attachment of the discharged conidium after landing on host cuticle [3]. The conidia of entomophthoralean fungi are discharged with fluid from the conidiophore, which further assist the conidium to stick to host cuticle after landing [4, 5]. Once the conidia of entomophthoralean fungi are discharged from
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