First Record of Clonostachys rosea (Ascomycota: Hypocreales) Entomopathogenic Fungus in the Mango Hopper Amritodus atkinsoni (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)

Abhishek Kumar Tamta; Renu Pandey; Jiten R Sharma; Rajnish Rai; Mritunjoy Barman; Deeksha M G; Debasis Mitra; Pradeep Kumar Das Mohapatra; Rokayya Sami; Amina A M Al-Mushhin; Fadi Baakdah; Yasser S Mostafa; Sulaiman A Alrumman; Mahmoud Helal

doi:10.3390/pathogens11121447

First Record of Clonostachys rosea (Ascomycota: Hypocreales) Entomopathogenic Fungus in the Mango Hopper Amritodus atkinsoni (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae)

Pathogens. 2022 Nov 30;11(12):1447. doi: 10.3390/pathogens11121447.

Authors

Abhishek Kumar Tamta¹, Renu Pandey¹, Jiten R Sharma², Rajnish Rai¹, Mritunjoy Barman^{3

4}, Deeksha M G^{1

5}, Debasis Mitra⁶, Pradeep Kumar Das Mohapatra⁶, Rokayya Sami⁷, Amina A M Al-Mushhin⁸, Fadi Baakdah^{9

10}, Yasser S Mostafa¹¹, Sulaiman A Alrumman¹¹, Mahmoud Helal^{12

13}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Entomology, College of Agriculture, Govind Ballabh Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar 263145, India.
² School of Life Sciences, Central University of Gujarat, Gandhinagar 382030, India.
³ Department of Agricultural Entomology, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Mohanpur 741252, India.
⁴ Department of Entomology, G. D. Goenka University, Gurugram 122103, India.
⁵ Division of Entomology, ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi 110012, India.
⁶ Department of Microbiology, Raiganj University, Raiganj 733134, India.
⁷ Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Sciences, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia.
⁸ Department of Biology, College of Science and Humanities in Al-Kharj, Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Al-Kharj 11942, Saudi Arabia.
⁹ Department of Medical Laboratory Technology, Faculty of Applied Medical Sciences, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
¹⁰ Special Infectious Agents Unit, King Fahd Medical Research Center, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Saudi Arabia.
¹¹ Department of Biology, College of Science, King Khalid University, Abha 61413, Saudi Arabia.
¹² Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi Arabia.
¹³ Production Engineering and Mechanical Design Department, Faculty of Engineering, Mansoura University, Mansoura P.O. Box 35516, Egypt.

Abstract

Mango hopper (Amritodus atkinsoni Lethierry) causes devastations in the early vegetative stage of the mango crop. The classical management of mango hopper is with systemic insecticides but their overuse has caused environmental pollution. Here, we have evaluated the entomopathogenic role of Clonostachys rosea through bioassay and optimized media for its large-scale culturing. The current study reveals the potentiality of C. rosea as entomopathogenic on A. atkinsoni. Initially, morphological and molecular characterization was used to validate local isolates' identity as C. rosea. Further, we have evaluated the entomopathogenic role of C. rosea through a bioassay, where the highest mean mortality in A. atkinsoni was observed at a treatment concentration of 3 × 10⁸ conidia/mL, with 96.67% mortality after 168 h of infection. This work also provides insight into the laboratory-based media standardization for C. rosea, resulting in oatmeal agar media and broth as the most suitable artificial media, and 20 °C temperature for its mass culture. Thus, C. rosea is a novo-entomopathogenic fungus on A. atkinsoni and has a high potency to be included in the management of mango hopper pests.

Keywords: Clonostaychs rosea; biological control; entomology; etiology; mango hopper; media optimization; novo-entomopathogenic fungus.

Grants and funding

This research received no external funding.