Identification of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma’ species in “huanglongbing” infected citrus orchards in the Caribbean

Identification of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma’ species in “huanglongbing infected citrus orchards in the Caribbean” is the first joint paper developed by the TROPICSAFE consortium and published in open access by the European Journal of Plant Pathologyan international journal publishing original articles in English dealing with fundamental and applied aspects of plant pathology; considering disease in agricultural and horticultural crops, forestry, and in natural plant populations. 

Abstract

Huanglongbing” (HLB) is one of the most devastating diseases of citrus orchards worldwide. Samples from 183 citrus plants of different cultivars and rootstock/cultivar combinations, showing HLB symptoms in three Caribbean countries (Cuba, Jamaica, and Guadeloupe-France), were collected to verify the possible co-infection of ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma’ and ‘Candidatus Liberibacter’ species.

The 64% of the samples resulted positive to the ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’ and the 27% to diverse ‘Ca. Phytoplasma’-related species, moreover about the 14% of the samples infected with ‘Ca. Liberibacter’ were also found positive to phytoplasmas, indicating the presence of mixed infection especially in the orchards located in Cuba. Moreover, in one of the samples from Jamaica mixed phytoplasma infection was detected.

Moreover the detection of only phytoplasmas in 11 symptomatic citrus samples collected from Cuba and Guadeloupe without ‘Ca. Liberibacter’ detection, confirmed that the symptomatology cannot be the sole criterium to discriminate between the presence of the two pathogens, and molecular detection is necessary to identify single or mixed infections. Diaphorina citri insects collected from Cuba and Guadeloupe resulted infected with ‘Ca. L. asiaticus’ confirming its active role in the dissemination of the pathogen. Only one insect of the Cicadidae family, collected in Guadeloupe, was found positive for phytoplasma presence. Considering that the phytoplasmas belonging to some ‘Candidatus species’ were detected in the three countries in different citrus varieties, a relevant role as phytoplasma reservoir can be attribute to citrus orchards.

The research leading to these results received funding from EU H2020 R & I programme project “Insectborne prokaryote-associated diseases in tropical and subtropical perennial crops – TROPICSAFE”.

The paper, available digitally online, can be found herehttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10658-021-02234-7

Author information