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Entomopathogenic Fungi

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Microbial Approaches for Insect Pest Management

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Abstract

With the rising need of switching over to sustainable agricultural practices, utilization of entomopathogenic fungi (EPF) as biocontrol agents provides better and safe substitute against chemical insecticides, which are associated with several environmental and health hazards. Entomopathogenic fungi act as a parasite of insects and kill or critically disable the insects. These include different classes of fungi, viz., Oomycota, Chytridiomycota, Zygomycota, Ascomycota, Deuteromycota, Basidiomycota, and Entomophthoromycota that infect and kill the insects. Some of the merits related with the uses of entomopathogenic fungi as biocontrol agents are high host specificity, insignificant effect on the beneficial insects/nontarget organisms, and simple mass production. The EFP are reported to infect a very wide range of insects, such as lepidopterous larvae, aphids, and thrips, which are of enormous concern in the agriculture, globally. This approach of using EPF as biocontrol agent, instead of chemical pesticides, seems to be very effective and promising in the near future as it moves toward sustainable agricultural practices and protecting the environment, which is the need of the hour.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Biocontrol Laboratory, Department of Botany, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Amritesh C. Shukla & Karina Afzal

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  1. Amritesh C. Shukla
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  2. Karina Afzal
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  1. Department of Zoology, University of Lucknow, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India

    Omkar

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Shukla, A.C., Afzal, K. (2021). Entomopathogenic Fungi. In: Omkar (eds) Microbial Approaches for Insect Pest Management. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-3595-3_7

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