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Novel species and new records of Diaporthe causing eggplant leaf and fruit blight in the Philippines

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Abstract

Fungal pathogens pose threats to crop productivity and food security. Management of fungal diseases can be achieved through an integrated disease management approach, including accurate identification of the causative agents. Diaporthe blight is a common disease of eggplant (Solanum melongena). Although Diaporthe vexans has been implicated as the causative agent, it was unclear until this study whether other Diaporthe species also contribute to this disease. In this study, leaf and fruit blights of eggplants were collected from different provinces in the Philippines. Through a polyphasic approach—morphological, cultural, pathogenicity, and multi-locus phylogenetic analyses of ITS, TEF1-α, TUB2, CAL, and HIS3 coupled with genealogical concordance phylogenetic species recognition analyses—we identified six Diaporthe speciesfrom the D. sojae species complex and D. arecae species complex. Two novel species, D. solani-melongenae and D. talong, along with the re-validated D. melongenae, and known species, viz., D. arecae, D. passifloricola, and D. vexans were identified as the causative agents of Diaporthe leaf and fruit blight of eggplant in the Philippines. Additionally, we also provide evidence supporting the synonymization of D. etinsidea with D. tulliensis, D. durionigena with D. rosae, and D. griceae with D. vexans. Our study confirmed that D. vexans is the major causative agent of eggplant blight in the country. All Diaporthe species were found to be pathogenic to eggplant. The results of this study contribute to the understanding of the eggplant blight disease, its potential spread, and the development of more targeted management strategies.

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Data Availability

Publicly available datasets were analyzed in this study. This data can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ (accessed on 28 September 2022).

The completed alignments and trees were submitted to TreeBASE (Submission ID 31076,

http://purl.org/phylo/treebase/phylows/study/TB2:S31076?x-access-code=1145c5f0bd233dbe13ed228f4d999856&format=html accessed on 07 January 2024). Other data are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dr. Shaun Pennycook for his suggestions on nomenclature for the new taxa described herein. We thank Dr. Mark S. Calabon and Prof. Paul M. Kirk for their assistance in registering and validating the taxa herein. We thank Christine Joy Corpuz, Monica Fronda, John Darby Taguiam, Edzel, Evallo, Deborah Ann Dimayacyac, Angelica Bobis, Loida Pascual, Rosana Matienzo, and Pamela Quintos for technical assistance. We also thank all our collaborators from various research institutions, government agencies, state colleges and universities, and private individuals who assisted and supported our collection trips in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. We also thank the Department of Agriculture (DA)-RCPC, local, municipal, and provincial government units, and the Bureau of Plant Industry-Plant Quarantine Services Division for their kind assistance. HD Aumentado is grateful to the Department of Science and Technology – Science Education Institute, Taguig City, Philippines.

Funding

This study was supported by the Institute of Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Baños. The study was conducted during the authors’ stay at the institute.

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  1. Herbert Dustin Aumentado

    Present address: Center of Excellence in Fungal Research, Mae Fah Luang University, Mueang Chiang Rai, Thailand

  2. Mark Angelo Balendres

    Present address: Department of Biology, College of Science, De La Salle University, Manila, Philippines

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  1. Pathology Laboratory, Institute of Plant Breeding, College of Agriculture and Food Science, University of the Philippines Los Baños, Laguna, Philippines

    Herbert Dustin Aumentado & Mark Angelo Balendres

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HDA conceived the work, conducted the experiments, collected and analyzed the data, and drafted and revised the manuscript. MAB conceived the work, contributed to the experimental design, and edited and revised the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Mark Angelo Balendres.

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Aumentado, H.D., Balendres, M.A. Novel species and new records of Diaporthe causing eggplant leaf and fruit blight in the Philippines. Mycol Progress 23, 23 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11557-024-01957-1

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