CEPAVE   05420
CENTRO DE ESTUDIOS PARASITOLOGICOS Y DE VECTORES
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
First report of Pandora neoaphidis resting spore formation in vivo in aphid hosts
Autor/es:
SCORSETTI, A.C.; JENSEN, A.B.; LÓPEZ LASTRA, C.C.; HUMBER, R.A.
Revista:
MYCOLOGICAL RESEARCH
Editorial:
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
Referencias:
Año: 2011
ISSN:
0953-7562
Resumen:
The entomopathogenic fungus Pandora neoaphidis is a recognized pathogen of aphids, causes natural epizootics in aphid populations, and interacts and competes with aphid predators and parasitoids. Survival of entomophthoralean fungi in periods of unsuitable weather conditions or lack of appropriate host insects is accomplished mainly by thick-walled resting spores (zygospores or azygospores). However, resting spores are not known for some entomophthoralean species such as P. neoaphidis. Several hypotheses of P. neoaphidis winter survival can be found in the literature but so far these hypotheses do not include the presence of resting spores. Resting spores were found in an aphid population where P. neoaphidis was the only entomophthoralean fungus observed during surveys conducted in organic horticultural crops in greenhouses and open fields in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. This study sought to use molecular methods to confirm that these resting spores were, in fact, those of P. neoaphidis while further documenting and characterizing these resting spores that were produced in vivo in aphid hosts. The double-walled resting spores were characterized using light and transmission electron microscopy. The Argentinean resting spores clustered together with P. neoaphidis isolates with bootstrap values above 98 percent in the SSU rRNA sequence analysis and with bootstrap values above 99 percent the ITS II region sequence analysis. This study is the first gene-based confirmation from either infected hosts or cultures that P. neoaphidis is able to produce resting spores.