**2.1 Culturing of entomopathogenic fungi**

The entomopathogenic fungi *M. anisopliae* (EBCL 02049), *B. bassiana* (EBCL 03005) and *I. fumosorosea* (EBCL 03011) were originally isolated from *C. formosanus* in China. The strains were deposited at European Biological Control Laboratory, France. The strains were successively sub-cultured on Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA, Difco Laboratories, Detroit, MI, US) at 26 ± 0.5 ºC, in complete darkness. Fungal strains maintenance was identical to our previous study, where it was extensively described (Hussain et al., 2009). In brief, 24-day-old spores of studied strains cultivated on PDA were used as inoculum in all the growth media.
