Abstract
Potato is the third most important crop in the world after rice and wheat, with a great social and economic importance in Portugal as it is grown throughout the country, including the archipelagos of Madeira and the Azores. The tropical root-knot nematode (RKN) Meloidogyne luci is a polyphagous species with many of its host plants having economic importance and the ability to survive in temperate regions, which pose a risk to agricultural production. In 2019, M. luci was detected from soil samples collected from the council of Santo António in Pico Island (Azores). Bioassays were carried out to obtain females, egg masses, and second-stage juveniles to characterize this isolate morphologically, biochemically, and molecularly. The observed morphological features and morphometrics showed high similarity and consistency with previous descriptions. Concerning the biochemical characterization, the esterase (EST) phenotype displayed a pattern with three bands similar to the one previously described for M. luci and distinct from M. ethiopica. Regarding the molecular analysis, an 1800 bp region of the mitochondrial DNA between cytochrome oxidase subunit II (COII) and 16S rRNA genes was analyzed and the phylogenetic tree revealed that the isolate grouped with M. luci isolates (99.17%). This is the first report of M. luci parasitizing potato in the Azores islands, contributing additional information on the distribution of this plant-parasitic nematode.
Highlights
Potato, Solanum tuberosum, is the third most important crop in the world after rice and wheat, with more than 156 countries producing it, and hundreds of millions of people depending on it for survival
China is the biggest producer of potatoes worldwide, with an estimated production of 91 million metric tons, while Europe accounts for 106 million metric tons [1]
Since M. luci is a polyphagous species with many of its host plants being of economic importance, it poses a risk to agricultural production, especially for potato
Summary
Solanum tuberosum, is the third most important crop in the world after rice and wheat, with more than 156 countries producing it, and hundreds of millions of people depending on it for survival. RKN are one of the oldest known parasitic nematodes of plants and considered serious pests of economically important crops [4,5]. Since M. luci is a polyphagous species with many of its host plants being of economic importance, it poses a risk to agricultural production, especially for potato. Its detection in Europe shows that it has the potential to enter the region and survive under temperate conditions [14]. For those reasons, in 2017 M. luci was added to the European Plant Protection Organization (EPPO) alert list and in 2019 a national survey was implemented aiming to avoid dispersion. The aim of the present study was morphological, morphometric, biochemical and molecularly characterize the isolate of RKN M. luci found in the Azores islands
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