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Small-spored Alternaria spp. (section Alternaria) are common pathogens on wild tomato species |
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| Authors: | Tamara Schmey Corinn Small Severin Einspanier Lina Muñoz Hoyoz Tahir Ali Soledad Gamboa Betty Mamani German C. Sepulveda Marco Thines Remco Stam |
| Affiliation: | 1. Chair of Phytopathology, TUM School of Life Science, Technische Universität München, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany Contribution: Conceptualization (equal), Data curation (lead), Formal analysis (lead), Investigation (equal), Methodology (equal), Project administration (supporting), Resources (equal), Validation (lead), Visualization (lead), Writing - original draft (lead), Writing - review & editing (equal);2. Chair of Phytopathology, TUM School of Life Science, Technische Universität München, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany Contribution: Investigation (equal), Methodology (equal), Resources (equal);3. Department for Phytopathology and Crop Protection, Institute for Phytopathology, Faculty of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences, Christian Albrechts University, Kiel, Germany;4. Chair of Phytopathology, TUM School of Life Science, Technische Universität München, Freising-Weihenstephan, Germany Contribution: Formal analysis (supporting), Investigation (supporting), Visualization (supporting);5. Translational Biodiversity Genomics Centre, Senckenberg Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany Contribution: Investigation (supporting);6. Plant Pathology and Bacteriology, International Potato Centre, Lima, Peru Contribution: Investigation (supporting), Resources (supporting);7. Instituto Basadre de Investigación en Agrobiotecnología y Recursos Genéticos, Escuela de Agronomía, Facultad Ciencias Agropecuarias, Universidad Nacional Jorge Basadre Grohmann, Tacna, Peru Contribution: Investigation (supporting), Resources (supporting);8. Departmento de recursos Ambientales, Facultad de Ciencias Agronómicas, Universidad de Arapacá, Arica, Chile Contribution: Investigation (supporting), Resources (supporting);9. Translational Biodiversity Genomics Centre, Senckenberg Institute, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Department of Biology, Institute of Ecology, Evolution, and Diversity, Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany Contribution: Resources (supporting), Supervision (supporting), Writing - review & editing (supporting) |
| Abstract: | The wild relatives of modern tomato crops are native to South America. These plants occur in habitats as different as the Andes and the Atacama Desert and are, to some degree, all susceptible to fungal pathogens of the genus Alternaria. Alternaria is a large genus. On tomatoes, several species cause early blight, leaf spots and other diseases. We collected Alternaria-like infection lesions from the leaves of eight wild tomato species from Chile and Peru. Using molecular barcoding markers, we characterized the pathogens. The infection lesions were caused predominantly by small-spored species of Alternaria of the section Alternaria, like A. alternata, but also by Stemphylium spp., Alternaria spp. from the section Ulocladioides and other related species. Morphological observations and an infection assay confirmed this. Comparative genetic diversity analyses show a larger diversity in this wild system than in studies of cultivated Solanum species. As A. alternata has been reported to be an increasing problem in cultivated tomatoes, investigating the evolutionary potential of this pathogen is not only interesting to scientists studying wild plant pathosystems. It could also inform crop protection and breeding programs to be aware of potential epidemics caused by species still confined to South America. |
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