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Colletotrichum: complex species or species ... - CBS - KNAW

Colletotrichum: complex species or species ... - CBS - KNAW

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Damm et al.are f<strong>or</strong>med directly from the germ tube of a germinating primaryconidium, and these are smaller and m<strong>or</strong>e irregular in f<strong>or</strong>m thanthose from which they are derived (Buddie et al. 1999). Additionally,older strains, especially if they have been frequently subcultured,may have conidia that are m<strong>or</strong>e variable in appearance than thosederived from recent stock. Nirenberg et al. (2002) observed thatshapes differed among conidia f<strong>or</strong>med in acervuli and in the aerialmycelium. The variation in conidial shape has led to <strong>species</strong> withinthe C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong> being inc<strong>or</strong>rectly placed into synonymywith other <strong>Colletotrichum</strong> <strong>species</strong>, primarily C. gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides– a legacy of the revision of the genus by von Arx (1957). Hisw<strong>or</strong>k marked a new era in the understanding of <strong>Colletotrichum</strong>systematics (Cannon et al. 2012, this issue), but many of thesynonymies proposed were inaccurate.In this study we found many <strong>species</strong> that had been consideredas synonyms of C. gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides by von Arx (1957) actuallybelong to the C. acutatum <strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong>, including C. mahoniae,C. godetiae, Gm. ph<strong>or</strong>mii, Gm. lycopersici, and Gm. limetticola.Glomerella miyabeana, here treated as a synonym of the older C.salicis, was regarded as a f<strong>or</strong>ma specialis of Ga. cingulata by vonArx (1957). Species treated as synonyms of C. gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides byvon Arx (1957) have also been found in the C. boninense <strong>species</strong><strong>complex</strong> (Damm et al. 2012, this issue). There were 39 strainsincluded in this study that had previously been identified as C.gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides <strong>or</strong> Ga. cingulata, based on m<strong>or</strong>phology. Thesestrains in fact belong to 14 <strong>species</strong> in <strong>or</strong> closely related to the C.acutatum <strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong>, including C. acutatum, C. australe, C.cosmi, C. costaricense, C. fi<strong>or</strong>iniae, C. godetiae, C. limetticola, C.lupini, C. melonis, C. nymphaeae, C. ph<strong>or</strong>mii, C. rhombif<strong>or</strong>me, C.salicis and C. <strong>or</strong>chidophilum.Not all <strong>species</strong> of <strong>Colletotrichum</strong> with acute-ended conidiabelong to the C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong>. There are <strong>species</strong> with falcateconidia that belong to the C. graminicola <strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong> (Crouchet al. 2009). Also outside the C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong> are <strong>species</strong>from herbaceous hosts with m<strong>or</strong>e <strong>or</strong> less curved conidia; thesewere previously regarded as C. dematium (Damm et al. 2009). Inaddition, the newly described C. pseudoacutatum f<strong>or</strong>ms straightconidia with acute ends but appears not to belong to the C. acutatum<strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong> (Cannon et al. 2012, this issue). Conidial shape istheref<strong>or</strong>e not a unif<strong>or</strong>m feature of the C. acutatum <strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong>.Bearing in mind the frequency with which strains from the C.acutatum <strong>species</strong> <strong>complex</strong> are encountered and their pathogenicityto a wide range of crop plants, it would be surprising if earliernames f<strong>or</strong> C. acutatum did not exist. Walker et al. (1991) foundthat C. xanthii (Halsted 1893) was synonymous with C. acutatumbased on m<strong>or</strong>phological criteria, but no authentic sequences areavailable and it is not clear at present in which clade this <strong>species</strong>fits. There was no interest at the time amongst <strong>Colletotrichum</strong>researchers to replace the name C. acutatum, and now the nameis so widely used that a name change would be unlikely to gainrecognition. Other older taxa have been recognised as belonging tothe C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong>, but as close relatives rather than f<strong>or</strong>malsynonyms. <strong>Colletotrichum</strong> lupini was found to be an independenttaxon within the C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong> by Nirenberg et al. (2002),rather than belonging to the C. gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides aggregate asassumed by Yang & Sweetingham (1998) and Elmer et al. (2001).Farr et al. (2006) found C. ph<strong>or</strong>mii (based on Fusarium ph<strong>or</strong>mii,Hennings 1898) to be closely related to C. acutatum and statedthat older rep<strong>or</strong>ts of C. gloeosp<strong>or</strong>ioides as pathogens of Ph<strong>or</strong>miumcould actually refer to C. ph<strong>or</strong>mii as well.Sreenivasaprasad & Talhinhas (2005) distinguished eightdistinct molecular groups within C. acutatum, A1–A8 (based on ITSand TUB2 DNA sequences), each of which was recognised hereas comprising one <strong>or</strong> m<strong>or</strong>e separate <strong>species</strong>. These auth<strong>or</strong>s listedpreviously described groups that c<strong>or</strong>responded to their own groups,including the seven groups recognised by Lardner et al. (1999), A,B, C, D, E, Ga. miyabeana and C. acutatum f. pineum. The Lardneret al. groups were mainly distinguished by m<strong>or</strong>phology, partial LSUsequences and RAPD banding patterns. Some of the strains fromLardner et al. (1999) are included in the present study and we foundthat only some of them c<strong>or</strong>responded with the groups adopted bySreenivasaprasad & Talhinhas (2005). <strong>Colletotrichum</strong> acutatumgroup A from Lardner et al. (1999) was regarded as c<strong>or</strong>respondingto group A5, but in our study, three of the four included strains ofC. acutatum group A – ICMP 1701, ICMP 12923 and ICMP 17991– belonged to C. fi<strong>or</strong>iniae (= group A3) and only one, ICMP 17992,belonged to C. acutatum (= group A5). At the same time, the threestrains of C. acutatum group C, which was supposed to c<strong>or</strong>respondto Sreenivasaprasad & Talhinhas group A3, were shown to belongto C. johnstonii, in the case of ICMP 12926 and IMI 357027, andto C. pyricola in the case of ICMP 12924. <strong>Colletotrichum</strong> acutatumgroup B was listed as c<strong>or</strong>responding to group A4, but the only strainincluded here, ICMP 12921, is now the ex-type of C. acerbum.ICMP strains regarded as Ga. miyabeana, that is ICMP 12954–12957, were confirmed here as C. salicis (= Ga. miyabeana). Ourphylogenetic tree (see Fig. 1) attempts to p<strong>or</strong>tray the groupings ofsome of these earlier studies, mapped on to our own phylogeny.This illustrates the problems encountered when one comparesgroups established by different studies using different criteria f<strong>or</strong>characterisation.Differences in pathogenicity of strains from different hosts havebeen observed in several studies. Some fruit diseases causedby the C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong> have been shown to be caused bydistinct phylogenetic lineages (Peres et al. 2008), and strawberryfruit rot in particular was rarely found to be caused by isolates fromheterogeneous hosts (Mackenzie et al. 2009). Cross-infectionpotential was tested by, to give a few examples, Bernstein et al.(1995), Freeman and Shabi (1996), Freeman et al. (2001b) andMackenzie et al. (2007). Cross-infection may occur in the field aswell as in the lab<strong>or</strong>at<strong>or</strong>y (Afanad<strong>or</strong>-Kafuri et al. 2003). Freeman etal. (2001a) found that C. acutatum from strawberry is able to causelesions on various fruits, both when the fruits are wounded andwhen they are intact. In vitro infection studies by Whitelaw-Weckertet al. (2007) revealed low host specificity among isolates that canbe assigned here to C. acutatum, C. simmondsii and C. fi<strong>or</strong>iniae.The lack of perceived host specificity in the C. acutatum <strong>complex</strong>probably has multiple causes, but much of the difficulty rests withpo<strong>or</strong> identification practice in pathology studies. Many investigationseven now avoid the inclusion of sequence-based evidence, <strong>or</strong> onlyuse ITS sequences, and only a few deposit adequate vouchermaterial. This means that name use is much less rig<strong>or</strong>ous thanit should be, leading to misleading results and po<strong>or</strong> comparabilitybetween studies. That said, it has to be acknowledged that many, ifnot most of the <strong>species</strong> we now recognise via multigene analysesappear not to be restricted to particular plants.One fact<strong>or</strong> making interpretation of pathogenicity data difficultmay be incomplete <strong>or</strong> misleading inf<strong>or</strong>mation on pathology f<strong>or</strong> thestrains we have studied. The stated plant/fungus association doesnot necessarily involve a pathogenic relationship: strains could beisolated as benign endophytes <strong>or</strong> as secondary pathogens. There ismuch further w<strong>or</strong>k needed on the mechanisms of pathogenicity andon evolution at the population level, but it does appear that many<strong>Colletotrichum</strong> <strong>species</strong> are unusually successful in overcomingmultiple host barriers.108

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