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Abstract
Endophytic fungal hitch-hikers have been difficult to detect in the past, and have potentially spread these latent pathogens via the global plant trade. The African genera Protea, Leucospermum and Leucadendron, commercially referred to as proteas, form the basis of a global flower production industry. The largest producers of proteas are Australia and South Africa, followed by Portugal and Spain. In the 1990s propagation material from South Africa was used to establish protea orchards in Portugal. We utilized metabarcoding to determine if this plant trade has carried host-specific fungal pathogens to a new environment. Wood samples collected from asymtomatic twigs from Portuguese farms, where propagation material had been imported from South Africa, was compared to material from South African farms that originally produced and supplied rooted and unrooted cuttings. DNA metabarcoding, using fungal-specific primers for the ITS2 gene region, produced 1237 OTUs. Focusing only on known pathogens of protea, we found that the Portuguese orchards contained fungal disease agents associated with Proteaceae or other plant families from the Southern Hemisphere. Our sampling technique could be used by agencies and applied to other plant material and pathogens to reduce the spread of pathogens.
Highlights
Trade of plant material is closely linked to the dispersal of plant pathogens (Burgess and Wingfield 2016; Liebhold et al 2012; Santini et al 2013)
As previously reported by Denman et al (2003), N. protearum is host-specific and its exclusive association with South African Proteaceae suggests that it is native and Neofusicoccum protearum is sporadically reported in Australia, whereas other Neofusicoccum species are more commonly found associated with proteas (Burgess Tan et al 2019)
It can be assumed that it has most likely been introduced in other countries clusters of points represent the same fungal community as positions were slightly jittered to display the abundance of samples plotted with the same non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) coordinates through the trade of South African protea plants
Summary
Trade of plant material is closely linked to the dispersal of plant pathogens (Burgess and Wingfield 2016; Liebhold et al 2012; Santini et al 2013). There are numerous examples of fungal “hitchhikers” in the global trade of plant material (Santini et al 2013) This can be a result of asymptomatic colonization of hosts and the abilty of the fungi to remain quiescent within the host tissue for long periods of time (Burgess et al 2016; Crone et al 2013; Hernandez-Escribano et al 2018). While the mechanisms of pest and pathogen introduction via plants has been addressed in the United States (Liebhold et al 2012) and Europe (Eschen et al 2017; Santini et al 2013), little is known regarding the origin and main dispersal pathways of invasive fungi, especially endophytes Such information is needed in order to estimate the relative risks related to the accidental introduction of these fungi.
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