Interaction and control of mammalian ectoparasites using Entomopathogenic Fungi (EF)

扁虱是牛、马和其他家畜和野生动物的主要害虫，在包括发展中国家和发达国家在内的世界范围内也会攻击人类。它们是几种对人类和兽医具有重要意义的疾病的媒介，包括无浆体病、巴贝斯虫病、埃立克斯虫病、莱姆疏螺旋体病、泰利氏病、壁虱传播的脑炎和许多其他疾病。目前，壁虱的控制主要基于化学杀螨剂的使用。由于对常见合成杀虫剂的抗药性问题日益严重，以及生态毒理方面的担忧(如家庭、动物产品)以及对宿主或非目标生物体的负面影响，因此非常需要生物防治等替代工具。至于今天，由微生物组成的商业生防剂很少用来控制任何体外寄生虫。在建议的研究中，我们建议研究体外寄生虫-病原体相互作用的一些基本方面，并开发应用程序包，同时保持对吸气三方合作的协同作用的关注。昆虫病原真菌被认为是最有趣和最有前途的生防菌。该项目的目标是：1)选择在中东气候条件下有效的高毒力EF菌株；2)采用直接和间接污染策略研究它们的效率；3)跟踪受感染的硬蜱种群内的自然分布，研究对非目标生物的副作用；4)通过与选择性和低毒的杀螨剂联合使用来提高EF的效率。

Ticks are major pests of cattle, horses, and other domestic and wild animals and attack humans too, worldwide including developing and developed countries. They serve as vectors of several diseases of human and veterinary importance, including anaplasmosis, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, Lyme borreliosis, theileriosis, tick-borne encephalitis and many others. Tick control is, at present, largely based on the use of chemical acaricides. Alternative tools for tick management, such as biological control, are highly desirable because of increasing problems with tick resistance to common synthetic pesticides and because of eco-toxicological concerns (e.g. homes, animal products) and negative effects on the host or on non-target organism respectively. As for today commercial biocontrol agents, which consist of microbials, are scarce for the control of any ectoparasites. In the suggested study we propose to study some fundamental aspects of ectoparasites-pathogen interactions and to develop application packages while keeping the focus on synergism of the aspirated tri-lateral cooperation. The Entomopathogenic Fungi (EF) are considered as most interesting and promising biocontrol agents. The project aims to I) select highly virulent EF strains effective under the climatic conditions of the Middle East, II) to study their efficiency using direct and indirect contamination strategies, III) to follow natural distribution within infected tick populations and study side effects on non-target organism IV) to enhance EF efficiency by combination with selective and low-toxic acaricides.