Effects of Endophytic Fungi on The Biology and the Demographic Statistics of Brown Planthopper.

Abstract

Endophytic fungi is an endosymbiont that lives within host plant tissues without causing any visible symptom of disease. This type of fungus are important as mediators in plant-herbivore interactions. Endophytic fungi are known to enhance resistance of host plant against insect herbivores mainly by productions of various alkaloid-based defensive compounds in the plant tissue or through alterations of plant nutritional quality. This study was conducted as an attempt to gain information on the effect of Nigrospora sp4 on the biology and life history of of brown plant hopper (BPH). Nigrospora sp4 culture (in powder form), were provided by Plant Clinic of Bogor Agriculture University, and was used to inoculate the fungi to the rice seeds. The effect of endophyte infected and endophyte-free plants were measured on the survival and development of Nilaparvata lugens Stál, a major pest in rice. Endophyte infected plants showed resistance to N. lugens in the form of significant increase in eggs and early nymphs mortality. Another effect of endophytic fungi which was also observed on this study were nymphal development, life cycle, preovipositional period as well as age at first reproduction. The overall result showed that Nigrospora sp4 has an affect toward population growth of N. lugens in laboratory scale and artificial inoculation of endophytes could be a useful method to protect rice plants from N. Lugens. This result could be used to develop alternative ecologically safe control strategies.