MICROBIAL CONTROL APPROACHES

• The use of microorganisms for biological control is commonly referred to as

microbial control, an approach that includes four strategies:
• CLASSICAL BIOLOGICAL CONTROL involves the intentional importation,
release and establishment of entomopathogens into a new environment.
• INOCULATION BIOLOGICAL CONTrol deals with the release of an
entomopathogen with the expectation that it will multiply and will provide
temporary control. This approach is sometimes referred to as augmentation
biological control.
• INUNDATIVE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL is dependent upon the release of
significant amounts of inoculum of an entomopathogen to provide
immediate control of the pest; control ensues from the release inoculum and
not from its progeny.
• CONSERVATION BIOLOGICAL CONTROL involves the modification of the
environment to protect and enhance an established entomopathogen.
BASIC PRINCIPLES IN INSECT PATHOLOGY
(1) The microorganisms that cause diseases (entomopathogens);
(2) Understanding the classification and phylogeny of entomopathogens;
(3) how the microorganisms invade an insect host (portal of entry);
(4) whether toxins are involved in the disease process (microbial toxins);\
(5) infectivity of the microorganisms (infectivity);
(6) the disease-producing power of the microorganisms (pathogenicity and
virulence)
(7) the number of microorganisms needed to cause an infection (dosage)
How many number of viral bodies (virion), fungal spores, bacterial crystals,
nematode juviniles per ml) EPF DOSE = 108 CFU (colony formation unit)
(8) the manifestation of disease (signs, symptoms, and syndromes);
(9) the progress of the infection (course of disease);
(10) types of infection (acute, chronic, and latent);
(11) the proof that a given microorganism is the cause of the disease
(Koch’s postulates); and
(12) how to determine and/or identify the causal agent (diagnosis).
KOCH’S POSTULATES
Koch’s postulates as stated in Tanada and Kaya (1993)
are:
• A specific pathogenic organism must be seen in all cases
of a disease.
• This organism must be attained in pure culture.
• The organism from the pure culture must reproduce the
disease in experimental animals.
• The same organism must be recovered from the
experimental animal.
 SCOPE OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
 HUMAN WELFARE
 By contributing in the fields of general biology, medicine, and
agriculture
 In general biology and medicine, the study of diseases in insects
has made significant contributions in many areas
 Vector Transmission,
 Immunity,
 Infectious Processes,
 Mutualism.
 In Agriculture
 Pest Control
Disease of beneficial insects: Insect pathology has played important roles in
the control of diseases in beneficial insects, such as :
 Silkworm
 Honeybee
 Entomophagous insects
 Insects that are being cultured or mass produced in the laboratory for
test purposes.
 SCOPE OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
 Principal application of insect pathology in entomology is in
economic and medical entomology.
 Economic Entomology
 Biological control (Methods of colonization of insect pathogens)
 Study of insect ecology (Epizootiology)
 Pathogens that may play a role in the regulation of insect populations.
 Study of nutritional and metabolic diseases
 Study the role of symbionts upon insect physiology
 Insect cytology and morphology in relation to insect pathology
 In taxonomy, the study of insect diseases has revealed strains and
races of insects that differ in their susceptibility to pathogens.
 In the case of termites and lac insects, internal symbionts have been
used to separate species or subspecies.
 Evolution and origin of insects
 Presence of similar mutualistic protozoa in the termite and wood
roach is one of the bases supporting the common origin of these
insects.
 SCOPE OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
 Toxicological studies

 In medical entomology and parasitology, the association

of the insect vector and the pathogen may be considered
as a section of insect pathology.

 A recent applied use of insect pathogens is the

development of baculoviruses as vectors for the
expression of foreign genes
 Development of Resistant varieties (Bt.)

 The expression products are useful to humans and

vertebrates [e.g., antibodies, immune factors (interleukins
and interferons), vaccines, and pharmaceutical products].
These products are almost identical to those produced in
the source animals and biologically as effective
 HISTORY OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
 Dates back to 2700 B.C., when the Chinese recorded
diseases of the silkworm.
 In the Far East, The ancient Chinese identified:
 fungal species of Cordyceps from the cadavers of the silkworm
 fungal species of Isaria from the cadavers of cicada
 These cadavers bore fungal growths designated as "vegetable
growths."
 These growths of Cordyceps, the so-called Chinese plantworms,
were used in folk pharmacopoeia to treat a large number of ailments
(even today).
Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) in his Historia Animalium described foulbrood.
 P. H. Nysten in 1808 reported disease in other insects
 W. Kirby: Chapter entitled "Diseases of Insects" (1826)
 divided the diseases of insects into two classes
 accidental external injury or internal derangement
(Noninfectious)
 Vegetable/animal parasitic organisms (fungi,
nematodes, mites, parasitic insects)
 HISTORY OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
Agostino Bassi (Bassi de Lodi)
 Father of Insect Pathology
 Del Mai del Segno, Calcinaccio o Moscardino, (1835 and 1836)
 Experimental Demonstration
 Mode of fungal disease transmission
 Beauveria bassiana, commonly known as the white-muscardine fungus.
Roland Thaxter
 Taxonomic studies on EPF
 monumental treatises on Entomophthorales and Laboulbeniales
Louis Pasteur
 Rescue the silkworm from certain diseases, particularly the protozoan
disease called pebrine
 Established that pathogen is transmitted by:
 Egg
 Ingestion of contaminated food
 Contact with disease silkworm
Study Flacherie of the silkworm and published his findings in 1870 in his
famous two-volume memoirs, Etudes sur la Maladie des Vers d Sole.
 HISTORY OF INSECT PATHOLOGY
Audoin (1837)
 Worked on infectiousness of insect pathogens.

LeConte (1874)
 studied the epizootics of insects
 investigated the most effective means of introducing and transmitting such pathogens
American entomologist, H. A. Hagen (1879)
 advocated the use of fungi for insect control and even outlined a procedure to
conduct field experiments with a yeast fungus

 A Russian associate of Pasteur, Elie Metchnikoff

 studied the diseases of the wheat cockchafer, Anisoplia austriaca, in the
laboratory and in nature