Morphometric and Molecular Diversity among Seven European Isolates of Pratylenchus penetrans.

Johannes Hallmann,Mesfin Bogale,Betre Tadesse,Peter Digennaro,Rasha Haj Nuaima,Bernd Honermeier

doi:10.3390/plants10040674

Johannes Hallmann, Mesfin Bogale + Show 4 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/plants10040674

Copy DOI

Abstract

Pratylenchus penetrans is an economically important root-lesion nematode species that affects agronomic and ornamental plants. Understanding its diversity is of paramount importance to develop effective control and management strategies. This study aimed to characterize the morphological and genetic diversity among seven European isolates. An isolate from the USA was included in the molecular analyses for comparative purposes. Morphometrics of the European P. penetrans isolates generally were within the range of the original descriptions for this species. However, multiple morphometric characteristics, including body length, maximum body width, tail length and length of the post-vulval uterine sac showed discrepancies when compared to other populations. Nucleotide sequence-based analyses revealed a high level of intraspecific diversity among the isolates. We observed no correlation between D2-D3 rDNA- and COXI-based phylogenetic similarities and geographic origin. Our phylogenetic analyses including selected GenBank sequences also suggest that the controversy surrounding the distinction between P. penetrans and P. fallax remains.

Highlights

The objective of this work was to determine the diversity among seven populations of P. penetrans that were collected from different geographical regions in Europe based on morphometric and molecular analyses
Significant similarities and differences in morphometric characters were observed amongst the seven P. penetrans isolates (Table 1)
Morphometric measurements of the seven P. penetrans populations studied here were within the range of the original descriptions [29,30]

Summary

Introduction

The main diagnostic characteristics are presence/absence of males, body length, head shape, stylet length, and other cuticular characters including the number of lip annules, the number of lateral field lines, the presence/absence of areolated bands on the lateral fields within the vulval region, the length and structure of the post-vulval uterine sac and shape of the spermatheca, the shape of the female tail and tail tip, and de Man’s indices [3,4,5,6]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion