Comparative Virulence of Metarhizium anisopliae and Four Strains of Beauveria bassiana against House Fly (Diptera: Muscidae) Adults with Attempted Selection for Faster Mortality

Abstract

Entomopathogenic fungi such as Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin and Metarhizium anisopliae/brunneum (Metchnikoff)/Petch have shown promising results for managing the house fly, Musca domestica L. A primary challenge of using these biological control agents (BCAs) in field situations is the time required to induce high adult house fly mortality, typically 6-7 d post-exposure. In this study, virulence of M. anisopliae (strain F52) and four B. bassiana strains were compared. The B. bassiana strains GHA and HF23 are used in commercial products and those were compared with two strains that were isolated from house flies on dairy farms (NFH10 and L90). Assays were conducted by exposing adult house flies to fungal-treated filter paper disks for 2 h. The lethal time to 50% mortality (LT50) at the high concentration of 1 × 109 conidia ranged from 3.8 to 5.2 d for all five strains. GHA, NFH10, and L90 killed flies faster than M. anisopliae strain F52; HF23 did not differ from either the M. anisopliae or the other B. bassiana strains. Attempts with the NFH10 strain to induce faster fly mortality through selection across 10 fungal to fly passages did not result in shorter time to fly death of the selected strain compared with the unselected strain.