Characterisation of Bursaphelenchus spp. isolated from packaging wood imported at Nanjing, China

Abstract

AbstractBursaphelenchus nematodes, extracted from 12 samples taken from imported packaging wood originating from seven countries and regions at Nanjing, China, during 2003 and 2004, were identified using morphology, morphometric data and ITS-RFLP patterns. Two samples were identified as B. xylophilus: one, from Canada, was the M-form and another, from Japan, the R-form. Five samples were identified as B. mucronatus, three belonging to the European genotype and two to the East-Asian genotype. Two samples (from Germany and South Korea) were recognised as B. rainulfi. Two samples (South Korea and Japan) were identified as B. doui and a sample from Hong Kong was identified as B. thailandae. Additional morphometric data are provided for the identified species, especially with respect to spicule morphometrics. The CDA of morphometric data discriminated the five species by nine male and eight female characters. The characters used for this analysis corresponded partly to the main taxonomic-informative characters for the genus Bursaphelenchus, viz., body length, stylet length, spicule length, a, c and c′ values. The phylogenetic trees constructed from the D2D3 sequence data supported the division of East Asian and European genotype groups of B. mucronatus. Bursaphelenchus doui grouped with B. xylophilus and B. mucronatus, all members of the xylophilus-group, which was separated from B. rainulfi and B. thailandae.