Identification, Characterization, and Evaluation of Nematophagous Fungal Species of and for the Management of .

Root-knot nematodes belonging to the genus are agriculturally important pests, and biocontrol strategies offer safer alternatives for their management. In the present study, two fungal species from Indian soils were identified as and based on morphological characteristics and further confirmed using molecular markers. evaluation of against and showed 82 and 73% parasitism, respectively, whereas gave 65.2 and 57.7% parasitism, respectively. Similarly, culture filtrates of caused 57.7 and 53.7% mortality of and , respectively, whereas caused higher mortality of 87.3 and 64%, respectively. Besides, greenhouse evaluation of both fungi against infecting tomato significantly reduced nematode disease burden reflecting parasitic success measured as the total number of galls, egg masses, eggs per egg mass, and derived nematode multiplication factor. Application of and reduced nematode multiplication factor by 80 and 95%, respectively, compared with control. General metabolite profiling of tested fungi using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and ultra-performance liquid chromatography-quadrupole/time of flight mass spectrometry reported for the first time here showed presence of various volatile and non-volatile compounds with nematicidal activity, , trimethyl-heptadiene, methyl-hexadecanol, dodecadienal, decane, terpendole E, dodecane, acetamido-6-anthraquinone, and hexadecanol. Also, other compounds such as undecane, dibutyl-disulfide, octadecenal, paganin, talathermophilin, dactylarin, tolypyridone A, tolypyridone B, pyridoxatin, and destruxin were identified, reported in the literature to possess antibacterial, antifungal, and insecticidal properties. This is the first report of the occurrence of both fungi from India and pioneer demonstration of for root-knot nematode management.