1. Introduction
Entomopathogenic fungi are the natural biological control agents of insect pests [
1]. The fungi belonging to
Fusarium Link ex Grey (Hypocreales: Nectriaceae) are widely known as plant pathogens and saprophytes. Among animals,
Fusarium spp. are quite abundantly associated with insects from different orders, i.e., Coleoptera, Diptera, Hemiptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, and Orthoptera [
2,
3]. A previous study emphasized the use of different
Fusarium spp. as biological control agents for the agricultural insect pests, and aroused concern towards the limited research in this direction, pertaining to a generalized apprehension of releasing phytopathogens and related toxins in the environment [
4]. The commonly occurring fusaria from insects were termed “insecticolous fungi” [
4]. Another study suggested that
Fusarium spp., which can kill insects, can be good candidates for insect biological control in agroecosystems. Because these fusaria sometimes demonstrate high host specificity, can be easily cultured in a laboratory setting, can survive in fields as facultative pathogens, and are not all harmful to plants [
5].
Fusarium oxysporum Schlechtendahl is a widely known pathogen of plants and animals, including infections in humans; however, safe fusaria also exist in nature. Previous studies provide compelling reasons to consider fungi like
F. oxysporum for biological control of insect pests [
4,
5]. Another recent study presented a detailed dose-response curve and histological evidence of
F. oxysporum infections, and subsequent mortalities, in the larvae of wax moth
Galleria mellonella Linnaeus (Pyralidae: Lepidoptera) [
6]. Therefore, it was a proof-of-concept study demonstrating the entomopathogenicity of
F. oxysporum.
Soil is an excellent reservoir of insect-pathogenic fungi (IPF). However, only a few studies report the effects of physicochemical properties of soil on the distribution of IPF. Previous studies in this direction primarily focused on IPF
Beauveria bassiana (Balsamo) Vuillemin (Hypocreales: Cordycipitaceae), and
Metarhizium anisopliae (Metschnikoff) (Hypocreales: Clavicipitaceae) [
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12]. According to our knowledge, to date there is no report that focuses on soil chemical properties in terms of the abundance of IPF
F. oxysporum.
In this study, authors analyzed the chemical properties of the soils, including percentage organic matter content (OM); total organic carbon (C); total nitrogen (N); available potassium (K); available phosphorus (P); exchangeable ions such as potassium (K+), sodium (Na+), calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+); pH in H2O; total acidity (TA); degree of base saturation (DBS); and effective cation exchange capacity (ECEC), and investigated their effects on the natural abundance of entomopathogenic F. oxysporum. To enhance variations in the chemical properties, different soils were considered. Soils were (a) different in texture—i.e., medium-texture (more balanced mixture of sand, silt, and clay) or coarse-texture (high proportion of sand)—(b) sampled from varying habitat types—i.e., cultivated vineyards or adjacent hedgerows, mainly constituted of oak (Quercus spp. Linnaeus, Fagaceae) and pine trees (Pinus spp. Linnaeus, Pinaceae)—and (c) either treated with herbicides or left untreated.
Statistical modeling has been useful in entomology and related studies [
13,
14]. The generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) is a widely known tool in ecology for count data [
15]. In terms of IPF, count data is of great relevance; however, investigations implementing GLMM to study IPF occurrences are limited [
16].
The objectives of this work were (a) to understand the effects of soil chemical properties on IPF F. oxysporum occurrences in the soil, and (b) to demonstrate the usefulness of GLMM in studying the abundance of microbial pathogens—for example, IPF. This study goes a step further and provides a newer prospective among the ongoing efforts to utilize microbial entomopathogenicity in insect pest biological control within agroecosystems. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report on the effects of the soil chemical properties with respect to inter-kingdom host pathogen F. oxysporum.
3. Discussion
Biological communities in soils are likely to be the most complex. Microorganisms in the soils are extremely diverse, and they contribute to numerous ecosystem services that are critical to the sustainable functioning of both natural as well as managed ecosystems [
17]. Agroecosystems, for example, constantly lose nutrients through leaching, run-off, denitrification, removal of crop harvest, and residues, and hence are dependent on continuous external inputs of nutrients. Such losses are likely to affect lower trophic levels, and ultimately influence different ecosystems services, such as pest suppression [
18]. Soil microbes can affect crop yield, either (a) directly, e.g., as crop pathogens; or (b) indirectly, by participating in soil structure modification, carbon and nutrient cycles, and food web interactions. In either of these cases, soil microbes ultimately influence crop productivity [
17,
19,
20]. To bridge the gaps between these phenomena, the current study focuses on the soil chemical properties with respect to the abundance of IPF
F. oxysporum.
The most significant soil variable was the C:N (
p < 0.001), which promoted the abundance of mycoses in insect larvae. Nitrogen is essential to plant growth and added as fertilizers in soils, if necessary. However, it was noticed that addition of the NPK fertilizers eventually reduces the density of entomopathogens—for example, nematodes [
21]. Moreover, fertilizing soils tend to reduce the internal biological control within agroecosystems [
18]. Higher organic matter, and hence, the higher organic carbon, increases the cation exchange capacity of the soils, which ultimately increases fungal conidia attachment [
8]. Therefore, an increase in C and a decrease in N, which lead to a higher C:N, eventually facilitated the abundance of IPF
F. oxysporum in our study.
Modeling has been an integral part in predicting phenomena in entomology. For example, it has been used previously to estimate flight phenology of world-famous insect pests, such as the European grapevine moth, or
Lobesia botrana (Denis and Schiffermüller) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), in the Douro vineyards [
13]. A generalized linear mixed model, with a previous GLM stepwise deletion of non-significant variables, provides a better outlook towards finding the variables that are significantly affecting the data. The stepwise GLM procedures allow the discarding of effects that do not differ significantly from zero. Further usage of a less complex model, such as GLMM, which is widely used in ecology [
15], allowed improving the model and generalizing conclusions.
5. Conclusions
Interactions between plants and microbes are quite complex, and it is necessary to move forward from a simplistic view of an individual plant–microbe interaction to all factors influencing agroecosystems. Soil, its microbes, and plants all work in coherence, and influence various exchanges contributing to plant health and productivity [
30]. Soil provides fundamental ecosystem services, which include control of pests and diseases, nutrient cycling, and transformation of toxic materials and organic compounds. Microbes play a critical role in most of the soil processes. In this study, soil chemical properties affecting the presences of IPF
F. oxysporum were investigated, and few significant findings could be made. Overall, it was noticed that entomopathogenic
F. oxysporum is robust to most of the agricultural disturbances, although higher C:N and less exchangeable K
+ might facilitate its natural abundance. This study suggests that IPF
F. oxysporum can survive effectively in different soils, which further highlights its capabilities as an excellent soil saprophyte in the absence of host insects, as hinted previously [
5]. This kind of approach can be extended to other beneficial soil microbes. Predicting soil microbial quality based on soil chemical properties could be a promising approach in the development of the methods for sustainable agriculture. Authors also suggest the use of GLMM in similar studies focusing on count data profiles, while accessing the factors affecting the abundance of the microbes of interest.