BIOPROSPECTION AND CONSERVATION OF NATIVE CEPAS OF THE ENTOMOAGRAPHIC NEMATOR Heterorhabditis IN PANAMA

Abstract

In the year 2014 the Nematology Lab (NEMALAB) established a program for bioprospecting entomapathogenic nematodoes (EPN’s), mainly in the areas of influence of IDIAP’s Oriental Agricultural Research Center, at Colon, Darien and Panama provinces. For prospection, soil samples were collected primarily from farms or sites where pesticides are not applied. At the same time, a Program for the Production and Rearing of healthy larvae of apiary’s greater moth, Galleria mellonella, was established in one of three previously evaluated artificial diets, for the multiplication and in vivo maintenance of the native EPN strains. A Native Strains Bank was also established for depositing and maintaining found strains, for future uses in taxonomic studies for species identification of deposited strains (by morphometry and molecular biology) and the making of efficacy trials for biological control of insect pests. To November 2018 16 EPN’s native strains have been isolated (NEMALAB 1H to NEMALAB 16H) identified by conventional taxonomy (morphometry) under a compound microscope, within the genus Heterorhabditis (8 from Colon, 5 from Darien, 1 from Panama, 1 from Cocle and 1 from West Panama), in the rhizosphere of 12 crops (sweet pepper, cocoa, Robusta coffee, citrus, Patriota guinea, ginger, corn, papaya, pineapple, Cuerno Rosado plantain, yucca, and grapefruit). Each strain was geo-labeled in UTM coordinates and its altitude was registered in masl, for future references. The strains and their internally incorporated symbiont bacterium, Photorhabdus spp., were maintained at the strains bank in distilled water. To maintain them alive, active and pathogenic they were monthly refreshed by infecting healthy larvae of G. mellonella and recovering specimens of their third infective juvenile stage (J3) as they emerge from the cadavers of the infected and dead larvae, placed on top of “White traps”.