Seeking stability for research and applied uses of entomopathogenic fungi as biological control agents

• Assure access to research cultures by means of culture collection depositions
• How much and when should genomic database data be trusted?
• Too few biocontrol fungi are used due to laws, policies and business practices.
• Inoculative introductions of host-specific fungal pathogens should be used more.
• New nomenclatural rules eliminate many major entomopathogenic fungal genera.

Future progress in research with entomopathogenic fungi depends on a number of diverse considerations that help to stabilize the state of knowledge while supporting research about the documentation of the biodiversity and systematics of these fungi as well as those studies about their actions as pathogens of major and minor pests, and even as biological curiosities rather than as serious agents for use in biological control. This review considers (1) the role of service culture collections in culturing, preserving, and providing essential germplasm resources of these fungi for any and all research purposes; (2) whether there is too much stability in the current spectrum of entomopathogenic fungi actually being used in a practical sense and of possible alternative strategies to exploit more fungal entomopathogens; and (3) the diverse and far-reaching impacts of new nomenclatural rules that are constricting the pool of names applicable to entomopathogenic fungi while also stripping away their underlying taxonomic concepts that have long guided our interpretation and understanding of these fungi at a time when so many more taxa are being recognized. Some urgent problems underlying the shift from traditional to genomically based taxonomic approaches and about issues about the rapidly growing mass of genomic data are also discussed.

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