Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Native Entomopathogenic Fungi Beauveria bassiana and Metarhizium rileyi from North Coastal Andhra Pradesh

The investigation was undertaken on isolation and assessment of native entomopathogenic fungi from the North coastal districts of Andhra Pradesh at the Department of Entomology, Regional Agricultural Research Station, ANGRAU, Anakapalle, Andhra Pradesh during 2024-25. The soil samples were collected from both natural and agricultural habitats across Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam and Anakapalle districts. Two entomopathogenic fungal species were successfully isolated: Beauveria bassiana (AKP Bb-cd) from Neolamarckia cadamba soil and Metarhizium rileyi (AKP Mr-2m) from an insect cadaver collected from maize field. Morphological examination revealed white mycelial colonies in both isolates with M. rileyi transitioning to olive green upon sporulation. Molecular characterization using ITS1 and ITS4 primers produced 600 bp amplicons for both the isolates and sequences were deposited in NCBI GenBank. Phylogenetic analysis using Neighbour Joining method in MEGA 12 confirmed their genetic identity.