Our research evaluates biological control as a method for promoting sustainable agriculture and mitigating the impact of invasive species on ecosystems. Our work is centered on the exploration and application of fungal pathogens  to control agricultural weeds, thereby reducing reliance on chemical pesticides.

The concept of biological control in agriculture has a history spanning over 4000 years. Such methods have evolved into widespread and successful strategies, saving the agriculture industry millions of dollars every year. The rise of the organic food movement, coupled with increasing concerns over pesticide use, has fueled a surge in interest for biological control techniques targeting a variety of pests, including insects, fungi, and invasive plants. The efficiency of these biological control programs is crucial, often determining the success or failure of the control agent. This is exemplified in the historical attempts to manage gypsy moth populations using the fungus Entomophaga maimaiga. Early 20th-century efforts were unsuccessful, but the unintentional introduction of a different strain of the same species decades later resulted in effective and widespread control. This underlines the importance of selecting the appropriate strain for biological control programs to ensure their effectiveness.

Our main goals are to evaluate the population genetics of potential biological control agents to identify the different strains and conduct ecological and virulence studies on the strains determined from the genetic analyses to establish which are the most virulent and, thus, show the greatest potential for application in biological control programs.