Skip to main content
Log in

Curvularia malina causes a foliar disease on hybrid Bermuda grass in China

European Journal of Plant Pathology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Hybrid Bermuda grass (Cynodon dactylon × C. transvaalensis) was observed with an unknown foliar disease during a survey conducted in the golf courses of Hainan Province in southern China (during April 2011 to April 2015). Leaves on affected plants initially had small, dark brown, circular or oblong spots. Frequently, the spots would coalesce into large lesions with dark brownish-black margins. Leaf blight may occur under high disease pressure, resulting in black patches 2–15 cm in diameter on close mown turf such as golf course putting greens and fairways. Symptomatic leaf samples were collected from infected plants and cultured on potato dextrose agar. A sterile, filamentous fungus was isolated in pure culture. On the basis of colony morphology and combined sequences of the internal transcribed spacer regions and intervening 5.8S nrDNA (ITS), partial glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene (GAPDH) and partial translation elongation factor 1-alpha gene (TEF-1α), the fungus was identified as Curvularia malina. Pathogenicity testing showed C. malina isolates were pathogenic to healthy hybrid Bermuda grass and Koch’s postulates were fulfilled by re-isolating the pathogen.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2

References

  • Berbee, M., Pirseyedi, M., & Hubbard, S. (1999). Cochliobolus phylogenetics and the origin of known, highly virulent pathogens, inferred from ITS and glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase gene sequences. Mycologia, 91(6), 964–977.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Edgar, R. C. (2004). MUSCLE: Multiple sequence alignment with high accuracy and high throughput. Nucleic Acids Research, 32(5), 1792–1797.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Hanna, W. W., & Elsner, J. E. (1999). Registration of ‘TifEagle’ Bermuda grass. Crop Science, 39(4), 1258–1258.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hanna, W. W., Carrow, R. N., & Powell, A. J. (1997). Registration of ‘Tift 94’ Bermuda grass. Crop Science, 37(3), 1012–1012.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang, J., Zheng, L., & Hsiang, T. (2005). First report of leaf spot caused by Curvularia verruculosa on Cynodon sp. in Hubei, China. Plant Pathology, 54(2), 253–253.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J. C., Choi, G. J., Kim, H. T., Kim, H. J., & Cho, K. Y. (2000). Pathogenicity and pyrenocine production of Curvularia inaequalis isolated from zoysia grass. Plant Disease, 84(6), 684–688.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Kumar, S., Stecher, G., & Tamura, K. (2016). MEGA7: Molecular evolutionary genetics analysis version 7.0 for bigger datasets. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 33(7), 1870–1874.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Manamgoda, D. S., Rossman, A. Y., Castlebury, L. A., Crous, P. W., Madrid, H., Chukeatirote, E., & Hyde, K. D. (2014). The genus Bipolaris. Studies in Mycology, 79, 221–288.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D. L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Liu, L., Suchard, M. A., & Huelsenbeck, J. P. (2012). MrBayes 3.2: Efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model choice across a large model space. Systematic Biology, 61(3), 539–542.

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Schoch, C. L., Crous, P. W., Groenewald, J. Z., Boehm, E. W. A., Burgess, T. I., de Gruyter, J., de Hoog, G. S., Dixon, L. J., Grube, M., Gueidan, C., Harada, Y., Hatakeyama, S., Hirayama, K., Hosoya, T., Huhndorf, S. M., Hyde, K. D., Jones, E. B. G., Kohlmeyer, J., Kruys, A., Li, Y. M., Lucking, R., Lumbsch, H. T., Marvanova, L., Mbatchou, J. S., McVay, A. H., Miller, A. N., Mugambi, G. K., Muggia, L., Nelsen, M. P., Nelson, P., Owensby, C. A., Phillips, A. J. L., Phongpaichit, S., Pointing, S. B., Pujade-Renaud, V., Raja, H. A., Plata, E. R., Robbertse, B., Ruibal, C., Sakayaroj, J., Sano, T., Selbmann, L., Shearer, C. A., Shirouzu, T., Slippers, B., Suetrong, S., Tanaka, K., Volkmann-Kohlmeyer, B., Wingfield, M. J., Wood, A. R., Woudenberg, J. H. C., Yonezawa, H., Zhang, Y., & Spatafora, J. W. (2009). A class-wide phylogenetic assessment of Dothideomycetes. Studies in Mycology, 64, 1–15.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Smiley, R. H., Dernoeden, P. H., & Clarke, B. B. (2005). Compendium of turfgrass diseases. St. Paul, Minesota: American Phytopathological Society.

  • Tan, Y. P., Madrid, H., Crous, P. W., & Shivas, R. G. (2014). Johnalcornia gen. et. comb. nov., and nine new combinations in Curvularia based on molecular phylogenetic analysis. Australasian Plant Pathology, 43(6), 589–603.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tomaso-Peterson, M., Jo, Y. K., Vines, P. L., & Hoffmann, F. G. (2016). Curvularia malina sp. nov. incites a new disease of warm-season turfa grasses in the southeastern United States. Mycologia, 108(5), 915–924.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • White, T. J., Bruns, T., Lee, S., & Taylor, J. W. (1990). Amplification and direct sequencing of fungal ribosomal RNA genes for phylogenetics. In M. A. Innis, D. H. Gelfand, J. J. Sninsky, & T. J. White (Eds.), PCR protocols: A guide to methods and applications. San Diego (pp. 315–322). Academic Press.

  • Zhang, W., Liu, J., Huo, P., & Nan, Z. (2017). Curvularia lunata causes a leaf spot on Carpetgrass (Axonopus compressus) in China. Plant Disease, 101(3), 507.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the senior editor and the two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript. This research was financially supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (31602002), the Key Platform and Research Projects of Education Department of Guangdong Province (2015KQNCX093) and the “Yangfan” Talent Development Support Project of Guangdong Province.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhenchi Huang.

Ethics declarations

All authors have ensured the manuscript complies to the Ethical Rules applicable for this journal.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zhang, W., Liu, J., Huo, P. et al. Curvularia malina causes a foliar disease on hybrid Bermuda grass in China. Eur J Plant Pathol 151, 557–562 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-017-1390-7

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10658-017-1390-7

Keywords

Navigation