The effect of culture media on reproductive potential and virulence of entomopathogenic nematode
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Abstract
One of the main factors that affects the reproductive potential and virulence of entomopathogenic nematode (EPN) is the quality of culture media. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of different culture media on the number of offspring and median lethal dose (LD50) up to seven cycles of entomopathogenic nematode. Completely Randomized Design was used and EPNs were reared on three different media as follows: 1) Department of Agriculture (DOA) culture media 2) Nutrient-agar media and 3) In vivo as control. Results showed that Nutrient-agar media gave the highest number of offspring in the first and second cycles compared to other treatments. The offspring number was 61.81 and 62.20 IJs/parent, respectively. From the third to seventh cycle, In vivo tended to give higher number of offspring than others. Nematodes which were reared In vivo gave the lowest average median lethal dose (LD50) at 45.97 IJs/host toward seven cycles followed by nutrient-agar media (53.18 IJs/host) and culture media by DOA (53.47 IJs/host). From our results, we can conclude that different culture media affected on number of offspring and virulence only in a few generations. Further studies on developing methods of the beneficial trait stability are urgently needed.
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References
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