Abstract
Trials are currently being conducted in South Africa to establish Amaranthus cruentus as a new pseudocereal crop. During recent surveys, Fusarium species were associated with weevil damage in A. cruentus fields. Preliminary studies showed that some of these Fusarium species grouped into two distinct clades within the F. fujikuroi species complex. The aim of this study was to characterize these isolates based on the morphology and phylogeny of the translation elongation factor 1α (TEF1α) gene region, ß-tubulin 2 (ßT) gene region and RNA polymerase II subunit (RPB2), and to determine if these isolates are pathogenic to A. cruentus. Phylogenetic and morphological studies showed that these two clades represent two novel species described here as F. casha and F. curculicola. Both species were shown to have the potential to be pathogenic to A. cruentus during routine greenhouse inoculation tests. While isolations indicate a possible association between these two species and weevils, further research is needed to understand this association and the role of weevils in disease development involving F. casha and F. curculicola in A. cruentus.
Highlights
Food security worldwide currently relies on only a few major crops to feed the growing world population
The present study focused on the characterization of these isolates using multigene phylogenetic analyses and morphological comparisons
North West Province, central South Africa (January 2013 and March 2013). They were isolated (Table 1, Appendix Table A1) from emergence holes and lesions associated with the weevils Athesapeuta dodonis and Baris amaranti, discoloration in tunnels of H. haerens and larvae from the larval tunnels of H. haerens and adults of Ath. dodonis and B. amaranti (March 2013) from plants with insect damage [22]
Summary
Food security worldwide currently relies on only a few major crops to feed the growing world population. The introduction of new crops increases crop diversity and, lowers the exposure to food shortage due to harvest failures. The FFSC includes human and plant pathogens, and several species are known to produce mycotoxins such as beauvericin, fumonisin and moniliformin which can contaminate food sources for human and animal consumption, leading to serious mycotoxicoses [10,11,12]. Novel species descriptions are important because they increase the knowledge on the diversity, geographic distribution, host range, evolution and global movement of this species complex. More than 50 phylogenetic clades are known from this complex, with a number of undescribed species still awaiting description [2,3,5,6,8,9,13]
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