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Castanea sativa: genotype-dependent recovery from chestnut blight

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Abstract

In Lovran (coastal Croatia), a unique forest/orchard of evenly mixed grafted marrons and naturally growing nongrafted sweet chestnut trees exists. This old chestnut population has been devastated by chestnut blight, caused by an aggressive introduced pathogenic fungus, Cryphonectria parasitica. However, initial observations indicated recovery of naturally growing chestnut trees in that area, mediated by Cryphonectria-associated hypovirus (Cryphonectria hypovirus 1 (CHV-1)). Such recovery was not observed on grafted trees. Genotyping both, we confirmed the clonal origin of the grafted ones—marrons. No significant difference was observed between fungal strains isolated from naturally growing trees and the ones from marrons regarding fungal vegetative compatibility types or the prevalence of CHV-1. A strong correlation was observed between the types of canker: active/deep-expanding versus healing callus or superficial necrosis and the absence or presence of CHV-1 in the fungal isolates, sampled from naturally growing trees (Spearman rho 0.686, p value 7.81 × 10−5, Kendall tau 0.686, p value 5.18 × 10−7). Such correlation was not observed on marrons (Spearman rho 0.236, p value 0.235, Kendall tau 0.236, p value 0.084), because, unexpectedly, active/deep-expanding cankers were often associated with hypovirulent fungal isolates. These data indicate that the lack or unequal distribution of naturally occurring hypovirulence were not the cause of substantial marron decay in Lovran. Ecological and age-dependant differences were ruled out because all sampled trees are growing in close proximity and are of similar age. The results imply that the marron genotype is especially vulnerable and its ability to recover is limited even when the hypovirulent strain of the fungus is present in the canker.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Silvia Dingwall for the final English editing. This research was supported by Swiss National Science Foundation (SCOPES project IZ7370-12792/1) and the Croatian Ministry of Science Education and Sport.

Data Archiving Statement

Genotypes of the chestnut trees in Lovran are given in Supplementary 847 materials. 848.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Biology, Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Marin Ježić, Zlatko Liber & Mirna Ćurković-Perica

  2. Department of Biology, University of J. J. Strossmayer in Osijek, 31000, Osijek, Croatia

    Ljiljana Krstin, Marija Jelić & Jasenka Meštrović

  3. Department of Forest Genetics, Dendrology and Botany, Faculty of Forestry, University of Zagreb, 10000, Zagreb, Croatia

    Igor Poljak, Marilena Idžojtić & Marko Zebec

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  1. Marin Ježić
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  2. Ljiljana Krstin
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Correspondence to Mirna Ćurković-Perica.

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Communicated by A. Kremer

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Ježić, M., Krstin, L., Poljak, I. et al. Castanea sativa: genotype-dependent recovery from chestnut blight. Tree Genetics & Genomes 10, 101–110 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11295-013-0667-z

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