ARS | Publication request: Mycoinsecticides and Mycoacaricides: A comprehensive list with worldwide coverage and international classification of formulation types

Submitted to: Biological Control
Publication Type: Review Article
Publication Acceptance Date: August 6, 2007
Publication Date: October 31, 2007
Citation: Faria, M., Wraight, S.P. 2007. Mycoinsecticides and Mycoacaricides: A comprehensive list with worldwide coverage and international classification of formulation types. Biological Control. 43:237-256.

Technical Abstract: Recent years have seen a marked increase in the number of mycopesticides (pest control products based on living fungi) developed worldwide for control of arthropods, plant pathogens, and weeds. Since the first fungal-based biopesticides were developed in the 1960s, the list has grown to more than 200. Not surprisingly, information on many of these products is not widely available and much is incomplete, confusing and even contradictory. The same product may be marketed by different companies or under different trade names in different countries. Information on many products has been published in languages inaccessible to many western researchers. Even more problematic, details regarding some products were never printed or made available electronically, especially products developed by government-supported laboratories for local markets. Numerous lists of myco-insecticides, -acaricides, -fungicides, -nematicides and -herbicides have been compiled in the past decade, but these generally cover a single mycopesticide type and are not complete in terms of worldwide coverage. In this review we have attempted to compile a comprehensive list of mycopesticides developed over the past three decades. We list 201 products based on 43 fungi. Anamorphic fungi in the artificial orders Hyphomycetes and Coelomycetes account for 56% and 16% of listed fungi, respectively. Only a few species of Ascomycota and Basidiomycota have been developed as mycofungicides and mycoherbicides. Metarhizium anisopliae, Beauveria bassiana and Trichoderma harzianum account for nearly half (96) of the products developed. The total comprises 107 mycoinsecticides and mycoacaricides, 79 mycofungicides and myconematicides and 15 mycoheribcides.