{"id":16596,"date":"2026-07-14T23:15:26","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T22:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/?p=16596"},"modified":"2026-07-15T00:01:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:01:33","slug":"how-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/how-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects\/","title":{"rendered":"How fungi improve their ability to infect insects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainable plant protection measures that are not based on chemical pesticides rely on various organisms and biological agents to protect crops from pests. Such organisms used for biological plant protection are, for example, microscopic fungi of the genus <em>Metarhizium<\/em>, which can attack and kill a variety of plant-pathogenic insects and are used, for example, in South American sugar cane cultivation.<\/p>\n<p>The molecular mechanisms of fungal infection and the immune response of insects are in an ongoing process of mutual evolutionary adaptation. In a joint project with colleagues from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), a research team from Kiel University investigated the genetic changes in the fungus during infection of the invasive Argentine ant (<em>Linepithema humile<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p>The researchers examined the genomes of different strains of the fungi <em>Metarhizium robertsii<\/em> and <em>Metarhizium brunneum<\/em> from an earlier co-infection experiment in which ants had been infected with the fungus mix. In this study, the outgrowing spores were used to infect new ants over ten consecutive infection cycles&#8230;.<em>read more download PDF.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp.pdf\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-16609 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-212x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"212\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-725x1024.jpg 725w, https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-768x1085.jpg 768w, https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-1087x1536.jpg 1087w, https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1-300x424.jpg 300w, https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/IPC-05_How-fungi-improve-their-ability-to-infect-insects_pp_pages-to-jpg-0001-1.jpg 1241w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/><\/a><\/em><strong>Published in<\/strong> International Pest Control \u2013 May\/June 2024 issue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/subscribe\/\">Subscribe to International Pest Control magazine<\/a><br \/>\nSubscribers have free online access to all articles from 2004.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sustainable plant protection measures that are not based on chemical pesticides rely on various organisms and biological agents to protect crops from pests. Such organisms used for biological plant protection are, for example, microscopic fungi of the genus Metarhizium, which can attack and kill a variety of plant-pathogenic insects and are used, for example, in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16603,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,777,930],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/036-habig-pnas-linepithema-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16596"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16596"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16596\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16610,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16596\/revisions\/16610"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/international-pest-control.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}