RESEARCH PAPER Occurrence and diversity of entomopathogenic fungi in cultivated and uncultivated soils in Pakistan Waqas WAKIL 1 , M. Usman GHAZANFAR 2 , Tahira RIASAT 1 , Young Jung KWON 3 , Mirza Abdul QAYYUM 1 and Muhammad YASIN 1 1 Department of Agricultural Entomology, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, Pakistan 2 Department of Plant Pathology, University College of Agriculture, University of Sargodha, Sargodha, Pakistan 3 School of Applied Biosciences, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, Korea Correspondence Waqas Wakil, Department of Agricultural Entomology, University of Agriculture, Main Road, 38040 Faisalabad, Pakistan. Email: arid1972@yahoo.com Received 19 May 2012; accepted 26 July 2012. doi: 10.1111/1748-5967.12003 Abstract The distribution of entomopathogenic fungi in various geographical areas of Punjab, Pakistan, is poorly understood. The present study was planned to explore the occurrence and diversity of entomopathogenic fungi from soils collected from cultivated and non-cultivated habitats. The detailed survey of different habitats (crop fields, fruits, vegetables, forests) was conducted to collect soil samples and the associated fungi were isolated using Galleria bait method. Among 210 soil samples, 168 fungal isolates were recovered and identified, with 98 from forests, 32 from vegetables, 30 from field crops and 8 from fruits. The major entomopatho- genic fungi recovered from these samples were Beauveria bassiana, Metarhizium anisopliae, Paecilomyces lilacinus, B. brongniartii, P. chlamydosporia and Lec- anicillium attenuatum. The diversity of entomopathogenic fungi was greater in soil samples from forests compared to crop fields, vegetables and fruits, respec- tively. The geographical attributes (altitude, longitude, latitude) greatly influenced the occurrence of entomopathogenic fungi with the highest number of isolates found from >600 m altitude, 33°–34′N latitude, and 73°74′E longitude from soil samples. The results of the surveys clearly indicated that the entomopathogenic fungi are distributed in the soils which may be used in successful IPM programs in future. Key words: diversity, entomopathogenic fungi, indigenous, isolates, occurrence, soils. Introduction Widely distributed and extensively studied entomopatho- genic fungi belongs to two phylogenetic groups, namely Entomophthorales (Zygomycetes) and Ascomycetes (Evans 1988). Recent ancestral host reconstruction and phyloge- netic dating analysis has revealed the plant-based ancestral nutritional mode (Sung et al. 2008) and the origin of ento- mopathogenic mode of the fungi may have arisen several times from a common saprophytic soil and leaf litter inhab- iting ancestor (Spatafora & Blackwell 1993). Almost 90% of the arthropod pest species spend a part of their life cycle in the soil habitat (Kaya & Gaugler 1993) thus, soil is an important reservoir for entomopathogenic fungi and serve to control the populations of soil dwelling insect pests (Hajek 1997). Data about local isolates of entomopathogenic fungi, their diversity and distribution, is very important to conserve the native fungal species for natural control of insect pest populations within the agro-ecosystem (Hussein et al. 2010). The pathogenic nature of the fungi became known in the early 1800s against silkworm, wiping out the silk industry in France, and the first entomopathogenic fungi Botrytis bassiana was identified as muscardine disease of silkworms (Vega et al. 2009). Later, Elie Metchnikoff (1845–1916) named this insect disease as green muscardine of wheat cockchafers, identified as Entomopthora anisopliae, and it was then mass produced by Krassilstschik (1888) for the Entomological Research 43 (2013) 70–78 © 2013 The Authors Entomological Research © 2013 The Entomological Society of Korea and Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd