Reassessment of Paragnomonia (Sydowiellaceae, Diaporthales) and typification of Paragnomonia fragariae, the cause of strawberry root rot and petiole blight

Publication date: Available online 15 August 2019Source: Fungal BiologyAuthor(s): Inga Moročko-Bičevska, Jamshid Fatehi, Olga SokolovaAbstractParagnomonia fragariae is a plant pathogenic ascomycete causing root rot and petiole blight of perennial strawberry in northern Europe. It was first described as Gnomonia fragariae in Germany by Klebahn in 1918. Since its discovery, the identity of this fungus has been the subject of confusion with the other strawberry pathogen Gnomoniopsis fructicola that causes fruit rot, leaf blotch and stem end rot. This paper provides a revised description of Paragnomonia and P. fragariae with lecto- and epitypification based on the species original description, recent collections from four European countries, examination of specimens used in the previous taxonomic studies and phylogenetic analyses of DNA sequences of LSU, ITS/5.8S and translation elongation factor 1-α (tef1-α). In addition to previous records on distribution of P. fragariae in Germany, Latvia, Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom, to our knowledge, this study presents the first report of P. fragariae on cultivated strawberry in Finland and Lithuania. Our study on growth rate in various temperature regimes showed that P. fragariae is a cold-adapted fungus growing almost equally at 5 oC as at 20 oC and attaining maximal growth at 15 oC. The molecular phylogenetic analyses confirmed that Paragnomonia, comprising isolates of P. fragariae from five European countries, is a di...
Source: Fungal Biology - Category: Biology Source Type: research