Isozyme Characterization and Pathogenicity of Paecilomyces fumosoroseus and P. lilacinus to Diabrotica speciosa (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) and Meloidogyne javanica (Nematoda: Tylenchidae)

Ten monosporal fungal isolates of Paecilomyces fumosoroseus (Wize) Brown and Smith and 14 isolates of Paecilomyces lilacinus (Thom) Samson were characterized biochemically by separating mycelial proteins using isoelectric focusing (IEF). Eleven isozyme systems were used to detect polymorphism among these isolates. According to the cluster analysis of the isozyme data, isolates of P. fumosoroseus were separated into two phenetic groups with approximately 40% similarity. The P. lilacinus isolates were a homogenous group with high (> 85%) internal similarity. Both taxa exhibited approximately 30% similarity. Among the isolates of P. fumosoroseus and P. Lilacinus, most infected < 40% of the eggs of the coleopteron, Diabrotica speciosa (Germar), and the root-knot nematode, Meloidogyne javanica (Treub) Chitwood; only, isolate CG 177 of P. lilacinus was highly virulent to both D. speciosa and M. javanica eggs. The differential virulence observed among the isolates was not correlated with the groups obtained by cluster analysis of isozymes.