Natural fungus may provide effective bedbug control
Date: 26.11.2012
According to a team of Penn State entomologists, biopesticides -- naturally occurring microorganisms -- might provide an answer to this pest problem.
According to Nina Jenkins, senior research associate in entomology, preliminary bioassays on the effects of Beauveria bassiana -- a natural fungus that causes disease in insects -- on bedbug control have been performed, and the results are encouraging. She and her colleagues report their results in the most recent issue of the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology.
The researchers found that all of the bedbugs exposed to the biopesticide became infected and died within five days.
Also, there were no prominent differences in susceptibility by feeding status, sex, strain or life stage. Most importantly, the infected bedbugs carried the biopesticide back to their hiding places, infecting those that did not go out in search of blood.
