Effect of Metarhizium anisopliae in some biological aspects of the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella (L.)(Lepidoptera:Pyrallidae )

Abstract

Different concentrations of the fungal suspension of  Metarhizium anisopliae have been used against different  stages of Galleria mellonella ( L.) . The highest percentage of eggs mortality  reached  62.88 % at the concentration of 1×10⁷ spore/ml and decreased to 31.78 % at the concentration of 1×10⁴  spore/ml  , The value  of LC₅₀ of eggs was 1×10^5.82. The larval  instars have showed highest mortality rate reached (100 , 96.99 and  90.97  ) %  for 1^st  , 4^th and 7^th larval instars respectively  during 120 h at the concentration of  1×10⁷ spore/ml , The values of  lowest mortality rate when treated with  the concentration  1×10⁴ spore /ml  during  120 h  were (62.90 , 58.88 , 50.86 ) % for 1^st  , 4^th and 7^th larval instars respectively  , The values of  LC₅₀ were (1 × 10^3.72  , 1 × 10^3.86   , 1 × 10^3.99  ) spore/ml for 1^st  , 4^th and 7^th larval instars respectively   after 120  h .  54.89 %  the highest mortality rate  for the pupae when exposed to 1×⁷10 spore /ml and 36.85 % were dead when exposed to 1×⁴10 spore /ml , The LC₅₀ was 1 × 10^6.18  . The relationship between fungal suspension concentration and rate of adult mortality took the same trend , and the treatment with highest concentration caused  a high adult mortality, i.e  69.95 %  and  63.94 % for adult males and females at 168 hours, while the lowest mortality percentages were 41.91 %  and 43.91 % when treated with 1×10 ⁴ spore/ml at the same time, indicating that the males were more readiness than females to the fungal suspensions , The values of  LC₅₀ were (1 × 10^4.77    and  1 × 10^5.11   ) spore/ml for males  and females respectively  .