Species and Intraspecies Level Diversity of Beauveria in Boreal Forests of Northwestern Russia

Abstract—The diversity of entomopathogenic fungi, including, inter alia, members of the genus Beauveria, has been assessed insufficiently in Northwestern Russia. With respect to the contemporary taxonomical changes based on molecular markers, the available data are poor and need to be improved. We have established the species and intraspecies diversity of sixty Beauveria spp. isolates obtained from dead insects collected in Leningrad (2017), Novgorod (2018), Vologda (2018), and Pskov (2013, 2018) oblasts and in the Republic of Karelia (2017). Most fungi were isolated from beetles of the subfamily Scolytinae. Beauveria pseudobassiana was the predominant species in the studied subset (with an occurrence of 75.0%). B. bassiana (13.3%) and B. caledonica (11.7%) were isolated in smaller quantities. The latter species was considered rare for Russia; only one finding has been registered up to this time. Molecular analysis of the Bloc and tef1α loci allowed the designation of a new broad clade within B. pseudobassiana, comprised of haplotypes that had not been published in the nucleotide sequence databases previously. All other clades of the found species have a broad geographical distribution.