Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the occurrence, diversity, and distribution of Phytophthora species in Protected Natural Areas (PNAs), including forest stands, rivers, and riparian ecosystems, in Sicily (Italy), and assessing correlations with natural vegetation and host plants. Fifteen forest stands and 14 rivers in 10 Sicilian PNAs were studied. Phytophthora isolations from soil and stream water were performed using leaf baitings. Isolates were identified using both morphological characters and sequence analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. A rich community of 20 Phytophthora species from eight phylogenetic clades, including three new Phytophthora taxa, was recovered (17 species in rhizosphere soil from forest stands and 12 species in rivers). New knowledge about the distribution, host associations, and ecology of several Phytophthora species was provided.
Highlights
Due to its location in the central Mediterranean Sea and its vast area of 25.708 km2, Sicily is one of the most important biodiversity areas in Europe and in the Mediterranean basin [1,2] harboring more than 3000 plant species [3], 321 of which are endemic to Sicily [4]
Morphological and internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequence analyses revealed the occurrence of multiple Phytophthora species in each of the sampled Protected Natural Areas (PNAs)
This study demonstrated that in ecological and environmental studies the combined use of an efficient leaf baiting technique and a reliable molecular identification method is an efficient approach for studying the diversity and distribution of Phytophthora species in diverse protected natural ecosystems
Summary
Due to its location in the central Mediterranean Sea and its vast area of 25.708 km , Sicily is one of the most important biodiversity areas in Europe and in the Mediterranean basin [1,2] harboring more than 3000 plant species [3], 321 of which are endemic to Sicily [4]. Clades [6], this oomycete genus comprises some of the most aggressive plant pathogens of forests and other natural ecosystems [7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16]. Several studies highlighted the diversity of Phytophthora species in native vegetation and their potential impact on natural ecosystems [17,18,19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26]. The presence of exotic, potentially invasive Phytophthora species often represents a threat for the survival of native plant species and may alter the stability of the entire ecosystem. In Sardinia, a survey in the National Park of the La
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