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480 || AWSAR Awarded Popular Science Stories - 2019
Insect-Killing Fungus: A Friend or Foe to Agriculture
Ms. Lipa Deb*
Email: lipa178deb@gmail.com
Imagine! There are insects, insects and tonnes of them all around you, they are breeding faster than a fraction of seconds,
days and weeks, and there is no control of it. They will not only become a powerful source of competition with other dynamic creatures on earth but also become mightier than the sword to finish the entire human race.
Gosh! It feels so creep and horrifying. Yes, definitely, it is. Now you must be drowning deep down into your thoughts “If in reality, it happens, then what will happen to our food; there will be news of epidemics breaking all around as it will be voracious and will decompose everything coming on its way.”
Do not worry! Thanks to Mother Nature, there is an unsung victorious story of legendary fungal microorganisms, which are silently
doing the novel job of keeping such enemies under control. To your great surprise and mine too, they do so using the amazingly unique technique of turning insects into zombies and gradually leading to the death of insects that nobody could ever imagine. So, they are popularly known as fungal entomopathogens, which means fungi that kill insects.
How do they do it? Can it be seen with a naked eye? Do they really turn insects into zombies?
Definitely, you must be tremendously curious to know about this fungus by now.
Fungal entomopathogens are soil-borne microorganisms, which, depending on their nutritional requirement, survive on insects as parasites, on dead and decaying organic matter as saprophytes, and in association
* Ms. Lipa Deb, PhD Scholar from College of Post-Graduate Studies in Agricultural Sciences, Central Agricultural University, Meghalaya, is pursuing her research on “Characterization of Native Fungal Entomopathogens and their Antagonism Against Major Plant Pathogens of Cereals”. Her popular science story entitled “Insect Killing Fungus: Friend or Foe to Agriculture” has been selected for AWSAR Award.
