Isolation and identification of entomopathogenic fungi from cultivated and natural soils in Kermanshah province (West of Iran)

An investigation was carried out on the occurrence and distribution of entomopathogenic fungi in 41 soil samples collected from cultivated and natural regions in Kermanshah province (West of Iran) from July 2017 to April 2018. Among 41 soil samples, 114 fungal isolates were recovered with 39 from forests, 38 from fields, 22 from rangelands and 15 from garden soil. Based on the morphological characters and phylogeny of DNA sequence data for the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) rDNA and comparing the sequences with that available in NCBI database, the entomopathogenic fungi recovered were identified as: Aspergillus nomius*, Fusarium oxysporum, F. equiseti, Fusarium sp., Penicillim solitum, P. sizovae*, Penicillium sp., Alternaria chlamydosporigena, Meyerozyma guilliermondii, Paramyrothecium roridum, Chaetomium elatum, Beauveria bassiana*, B. pseudobassiana, and B. tenella*. The asterisk species are the new records for the mycobiota of Iran.