Molecular evidence for diverse populations of cassava-infecting begomoviruses in southern Africa

Summary.

 In this paper we describe results obtained from screening field populations of begomoviruses from infected cassava from six countries in southern Africa. It was found that African cassava mosaic virus occurs in five of the six countries (except Angola), East African cassava mosaic virus is present in five countries (except Zambia) and South African cassava mosaic virus was detected only in South Africa and Swaziland. In addition, we report for the first time in southern Africa, the appearance of the Ugandan variant virus (UgV) which was found frequently in mixed infections with other cassava-infecting begomoviruses.