Behavioural response of the fungus gnat, Bradysia impatiens (Diptera: Sciaridae) towards certain edible mushrooms and saprophytic fungi

Abstract

The fungus gnat Bradysia impatiens (Johannsen) is a worldwide pest inhabiting organicrich environments, including mushroom-cultivation substrates, which leads to massive production losses of edible mushrooms. To promote a non-insecticidal pest control strategy, we evaluated adult behavioural response towards two saprophytic fungal strains Aspergillus flavus Link and Mucor circinelloides Tiegh., isolated from B. impatiensinhabiting substrates and six edible mushrooms species. Our results indicated that (a) B. impatiens was most attracted to the oyster mushroom Pleurotus ostreatus among all six edible mushrooms; (b) males and females demonstrated a significant attraction for M. circinelloides over A. flavus and P. ostreatus; (c) adults demonstrated dynamic attraction tendencies that varied with the culture periods of A. flavus and M. circinelloides, wherein females represented most (mean = 78.6%) of the attracted individuals; and (d) larvae that fed on mycelial cultures of M. circinelloides could complete their entire life cycles, but larvae could not survive on a non-fungal or A. flavus diet. These results demonstrate the potential for the development of M. circinelloides in a push-pull strategy to biocontrol this pest in edible mushroom cultivation.

The complete mitochondrial genome of Bradysia impatiens (Diptera: Sciaridae)

“…Bradysia impatiens has a short life cycle of about 20 days, with 12–15 generations produced annually (Xi et al. 2021 ). The species has a broad range of plant hosts, including lily, spring onion, broad bean and cucumber, in China, Brazil and Australia, etc.…”

“… 2020 ; Xi et al. 2021 ). These studies mainly focused on the taxonomy and biological control of Bradysia .…”