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Re-classification of the causal agent of white grain disorder on wheat as three separate species of Eutiarosporella

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Abstract

In the late 1990s, a novel Botryosphaeria-like fungal pathogen was observed causing a disease on wheat in Queensland, characterised as white grain disorder (WGD). In recent years, this disease has sporadically appeared across the eastern states of Australia. In this study, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region sequences were used to compare these fungi to other Botryosphaeriaceae spp. to show that they should be reclassified as members of the Eutiarosporella genus. Using a small population of WGD isolates, we built a three-loci maximum likelihood tree, using ITS, β-tubulin, and Elongation Factor1-α sequences to show that there are three separate Eutiarosporella spp. found in infected grain. This multigene tree, with the support of phenotypic differences between clades observed in vitro, show that that the causal agents of WGD should be delimited into three divergent species; Eutiarosporella tritici-australis, Eutiarosporella darliae, and Eutiarosporella pseudodarliae.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC) (ANU00019). Peter Solomon is an Australian Research Council Future Fellow and Elisha Thynne is a recipient of an Australian Postgraduate Award and a GRDC Grains Industry Research Scholarship.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plant Sciences Division, Research School of Biology, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia

    Elisha Thynne, Megan C. McDonald & Peter S. Solomon

  2. South Australian Research and Development Institute, Plant Research Centre, Hartley Grove, Urrbrae, South Australia, 5064, Australia

    Margaret Evans & Hugh Wallwork

  3. Centre for Crop Health, Institute for Agriculture and the Environment, University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, QLD, 4350, Australia

    Stephen Neate

Authors
  1. Elisha Thynne
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  2. Megan C. McDonald
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  3. Margaret Evans
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  4. Hugh Wallwork
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  5. Stephen Neate
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  6. Peter S. Solomon
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Peter S. Solomon.

Electronic Supplementary Material

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Supplementary Table 1

(DOCX 37 kb)

Supplementary Fig 1

Phylogenetic analyses separate isolates of WGD fungi into three distinct clades. Tree is rooted to Botryosphaeria agaves. (JPEG 553 kb)

Supplementary Fig 2

Phylogenetic analyses comparing isolates of WGD fungi with a range of species from the former genus of Tiarosporella spp.. Tree is rooted to Marasasiomyces karoo. (JPEG 1739 kb)

Supplementary Fig 3

Alignment of EF1-α sequences of the isolates of wheat-infecting Tiarosporella spp. focusing on the region of base-deletion in B. zeae and Clade 2 B. zeae. (JPEG 473 kb)

Supplementary Fig 4

Growth of each of the clades of wheat-infecting Tiarosporella spp. at different temperatures. (JPEG 2495 kb)

Supplementary Fig 5

Histogram displaying the comparative conidial dimensions of Tiarosporella spp. in relation to WGD fungi. (JPEG 7644 kb)

Supplementary Fig 6

Image of Clade 1 pigment production on liquid minimal media (with sucrose and glutamine). (JPEG 1334 kb)

Supplementary Fig 7

Growth of each of the three clades on OMA, GABA-OMA,V8-OMA. (JPEG 979 kb)

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Thynne, E., McDonald, M.C., Evans, M. et al. Re-classification of the causal agent of white grain disorder on wheat as three separate species of Eutiarosporella . Australasian Plant Pathol. 44, 527–539 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13313-015-0367-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13313-015-0367-2

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