The Red Palm Weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus) is a devastating pest of palms in the Mediterranean, Middle East, and Eastern countries. No effective control measures are available. R. ferrugineus has been found naturally infected by the entomopathogenic fungus Beauveria bassiana, but its infection process in this host is unknown. We have studied the infection of R. ferrugineus larvae and adults by B. bassiana using dry conidia and conidia suspensions using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In early stages, SEM revealed acquisition of B. bassiana conidia by cuticle ornamentation in legs, antennae, and elytra of R. ferrugineus adults. Subsequently, conidia germinated and frequent episodes of hyphal/conidial fusion were found. Appressoria, signs of adhesion and cuticle degradation led to penetration (even direct) and colonization of R. ferrugineus hosts by the fungus. B. bassiana conidiophores were found in a R. ferrugineus cuticle, which indicate the completion of the life cycle of the fungus in the insect host. SEM has proven that dry conidia of B. bassiana is an adequate inoculum for R. ferrugineus infection. SEM revealed that conidia of B. bassiana attached to the cuticle of R. ferrugineus can germinate and differentiate appressoria.

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Although Iberian subsurface terrestrial habitats have been sampled for a half century, they remain poorly known. During the last five years much more sampling of these subsurface habitats has been made, mainly in scree slopes (also called colluvial Mesovoid Shallow Substratum habitats, MSS) but also in alluvial debris of temporal watercourses (alluvial MSS). In our study, diplurans, a basal hexapod group, were extracted from two hundred traps installed in 69 locations in the mountain ranges of six different regions of the Iberian Peninsula, from north to south: Cantabrian, Pyrenees, Iberic System, Central System, Prebaetic and Penibaetic Mountains. A total of 1251 specimens in fifteen dipluran species: thirteen described Campodeidae, one described Japygidae and one new Campodea species inhabiting the alluvial MSS habitats of the watercourses of Prebaetic Mountains. A few populations of these dipluran species show troglobiomorphic features as a consequence of the medium-sized voids of the MSS habitats, such as Campodea grassii Silvestri, 1912, collected in a scree slope connected with a deep subterranean system in Penyas Roset, Prebaetic Mountains. Most species found in MSS habitats are endogean or epiedaphic species living in the area, but this is not the case in Sierra de Guadarrama, where three species (Campodea propinqua Silvestri, 1932, Campodea neusae Sendra & Moreno, 2006 and Campodea zuluetai Silvestri, 1932) unknown in the soil of these mountains have appeared in these subsurface terrestrial habitats.