bassiana (Bals) Vuill to adult Phlebotomus duboscqi (Neveu-Lemaire)

Background & objectives: Biological control of sandflies using entomopathogenic fungi is a possible alternative to the expensive synthetic chemical control. It is potentially sustainable, less hazardous, and relatively inexpensive and merits further investigations. The objective of this study was to identify the most pathogenic fungal isolate(s) to sandflies in the laboratory. Methods: Isolates of entomopathogenic fungi Metarhizium anisopliae and Beauveria bassiana were screened for their pathogenicity against Phlebotomus duboscqi. Adult flies were contaminated using the technique described by Migiro et al (2010). Briefly, flies were exposed to 0.1 g of dry conidia evenly spread on a cotton velvet cloth covering the inner side of a cylindrical plastic tube (95 mm long × 48 mm diam). In all 25 sandflies were transferred into the cylindrical tube and allowed to walk on the velvet for one minute, after which they were transferred from the velvet into the cages in Perplex. Insects in the control treatments were exposed to fungus-free velvet cloth before being transferred into similar cages. The treatments were maintained at 25 ± 2°C, 60–70 % RH and 12L: 12D photoperiod. The experiment was replicated 5 times. The most pathogenic isolates were selected for further studies. Results: A total of 19 isolates were screened against adult sandflies in the laboratory. Mortality in the control