ibclogo XVI International Botanical Congess


Abstract Number: 2610
Poster No. = 1163


ECOLOGY OF CORDYCEPS MILITARIS (CLAVICIPITALES)


Hiroki Sato1), Naoto Kamata2) and Mitsuaki Shimazu1) 1) Forestry and Forest Products Res. Inst. Ibaraki 305-8687, Japan 2) Kanazawa University, Fac., Sci., Kanazawa, Ishikawa 920-1192, Japan


Cordyceps militaris is one of entomopathogenic fungi infecting lepidopteran insects. This fungus was detected in the laboratory by keeping lab-reared pupae of Syntypistis punctatella in litter collected from the beech forest, and it produced stromata on the pupae. When the pupae were buried into litter in the beech forest, they were also infected with the fungus in 7 - 10 days and killed within 40 days. Some of the larvae, which were kept on branches covered with netting enclosures and never had contact to the ground, died after pupation, and synnemata of the fungus appeared from the cadavers. The infection rate was higher at the site having both more host density and more this fungal density. The fungal ascospores were thought to infect the host in the air.


HTML-Version made 7. July 1999 by Kurt Stüber