ABSTRACT
Viruses are beneficial to humans in some instances owing to the relationship, which they have with insects that are also attacked by a great diversity of viruses, and frequently their infection may cause the death of infected hosts. Many entomopathogenic viruses from at least 16 families are very important in biological control to affect insect pests. Unique to insect viruses is their ability to produce a large pseudo crystalline occlusion body that protects mature virus particles in the environment. Such occlusion bodies have led to these viruses evolving a complex array of associations with their insect host and in many cases causing large‐scale disease epizootics. Although there is a great diversity of insect viruses, only a few are frequently observed in insect populations, such as baculovirus, cypovirus, entomopoxvirus and iridovirus. Baculoviruses are produced commercially and applied as a biological control agent to manage significant agricultural and forestry insects, especially in Orders Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera. Some other insect pests are also susceptible to viral infections and hence, these viruses can be used as biological control agents. For this purpose, viruses are initially recovered from infected insects, which can later be produced and applied in the field as bioinsecticides. This chapter focuses its attention on the description of the main groups of insect viruses, their characteristics, life cycle, genetics, usage as bioinsecticides, production and application.
