Identification and molecular characterisation of fifteen tropical isolates of the entomopathogenic fungus Metarhizium

ABSTRACT

Twelve Metarhizium isolates from Costa Rica, two from Honduras and one from Nicaragua were characterised using molecular and morphological information. Two gene sequences, TEF1-α and β-TUB, identified isolates as M. anisopliae, M. brunneum and M. robertsii, and has provided new sequence information. Eleven SSRs revealed fourteen different genotypes. Morphological variability coincided with allelic diversity within species. This work provides a starting point for the application of integral biocontrol programmes, but more comprehensive and detailed surveys are warranted to understand the species composition and genetic diversity of the Metarhizium in Central America.

KEYWORDS:

• Metarhizium
• tropical fungi
• internal transcribed spacer
• translation elongation factor 1-α
• β-tubulin
• SSR

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Walter Peraza-Padilla for the acquisition of digital images. We would also like to thank Eduardo Mora from the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE), Rommel Vega from Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA) and Ruth León from Instituto Nacional de Innovación y Transferencia en Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA) for helping us recover missing biogeographical data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID

M. Montero-Astúa http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1458-242X

R. Molina-Bravo http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5564-4426

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Fondos Especiales para la Educación Superior (FEES) of the Consejo Nacional de Rectores (CONARE) [grant agreement ACUERDO-VI-171-2013]. Additional support provided by [grant number 801-B6-131] Vicerrectoría de Investigación, Universidad de Costa Rica. This work has been submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sciences of Ruth Castro-Vásquez.