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Mating and reproductive characteristics of the pathogenic nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus

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Abstract

Pine wood nematode (Bursaphelenchus xylophilus), one of the most destructive invasive species, has caused extremely serious economic, ecological and social losses in many countries throughout the world. Since the high reproductive rate of B. xylophilus PWN is the main cause of rapid death of its pine hosts (Pinus spp.), understanding the reproductive and population biology and the ecology of this nmatode are of great importance. This study mainly focused on analyzing the mating process and population structure under different combinations of sex ratios for mating. Reproductive efficiency of B. xylophilus peaked when the sex ratio (female to male) was 3.4:1. Phases of the mating process for the different sex-ratio combinations indicated that B. xylophilus had evolved alternative reproductive strategies to cope with complex copulating conditions to obtain a suitable population structure for further propagation. This research provides fundamental information on the mechanism that is responsible for the rapid population growth of B. xylophilus.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Forest Pathogen Integrated Biology, Research Institute of Forestry New Technology, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, People’s Republic of China

    Yongxia Li, Mengge Gao, Baojun Liu, Xuan Wang, Jiafu Hu, Zhenyu Liu & Xingyao Zhang

  2. College of Forestry, Zhejiang Agriculture and Forestry University, Lin’an, 311300, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Jiafu Hu

  3. College of Plant Protection, Shandong Agricultural University, Tai’an, 271018, Shandong, People’s Republic of China

    Zhenyu Liu

  4. Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, 210037, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China

    Yongxia Li, Mengge Gao, Xuan Wang, Jiafu Hu, Zhenyu Liu & Xingyao Zhang

Authors
  1. Yongxia Li
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  2. Mengge Gao
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  3. Baojun Liu
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  4. Xuan Wang
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  5. Jiafu Hu
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  6. Zhenyu Liu
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  7. Xingyao Zhang
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Contributions

XZ, ZL, JH designed the study; YL, MG, BL, XW performed the experiments and analyzed the results; YL, MG wrote the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Zhenyu Liu or Xingyao Zhang.

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Project funding: This work was funded by the National Key R & D Program of China (2018YFC1200400).

The online version is available at http://www.springerlink.com.

Corresponding editor: Tao Xu.

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Li, Y., Gao, M., Liu, B. et al. Mating and reproductive characteristics of the pathogenic nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. J. For. Res. 32, 1281–1286 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-020-01150-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-020-01150-6

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