Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Metarhizium robertsii
Summary
Metarhizium robertsii formerly known as M. anisopliae, and even earlier as Entomophthora anisopliae (basionym) is a fungus that grows naturally in soils throughout the world and causes disease in various insects by acting as a parasitoid. Ilya I. Mechnikov named it after the insect species from which it was originally isolated – the beetle Anisoplia austriaca. It is a mitosporic fungus with asexual reproduction, which was formerly classified in the form class Hyphomycetes of the phylum Deuteromycota (also often called Fungi Imperfecti).
Many isolates have long been recognised to be specific, and they were assigned variety status, but they have now been assigned as new Metarhizium species, such as M. robertsii, M. majus and M. acridum (which was M. anisopliae var. acridum and included the isolates used for locust control). Metarhizium taii was placed in M. anisopliae var. anisopliae, but has now been described as a synonym of M. guizhouense (see Metarhizium). The commercially important isolate M.a. 43 (or F52, Met52, etc.), which infects Coleoptera and other insect orders has now been assigned to Metarhizium brunneum. M. anisopliae has since been renamed M. robertsii, renamed in honor of Donald W. Roberts, who did his Ph.D. on this species, and has continued to work with it prolifically as a research professor ever since.
The disease caused by the fungus is sometimes called green muscardine disease because of the green colour of its spores. When these mitotic (asexual) spores (called conidia) of the fungus come into contact with the body of an insect host, they germinate and the hyphae that emerge penetrate the cuticle. The fungus then develops inside the body, eventually killing the insect after a few days; this lethal effect is very likely aided by the production of insecticidal cyclic peptides (destruxins). The cuticle of the cadaver often becomes red. If the ambient humidity is high enough, a white mould then grows on the cadaver that soon turns green as spores are produced.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.