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<p>Specimens of <italic>Heterodera</italic> have been collected from alfalfa fields in Kearny County, Kansas &amp; Carbon County, Montana. DNA barcoding with the COI mitochondrial gene indicate that the species is not <italic>Heterodera glycines</italic>, soybean cyst nematode, <italic>H. schachtii</italic>, sugar beet cyst nematode, or <italic>H. trifolii</italic>, clover cyst nematode. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees show that the alfalfa specimens form a sister clade most closely related to <italic>H. glycines</italic>, with a 4.7% mean pairwise sequence divergence across the 862 nucleotides of the COI marker. Morphological analyses of juveniles and cysts conform to the measurements of <italic>H. medicaginis</italic>, the alfalfa cyst nematode originally described from the USSR in 1971. Initial host testing demonstrated that the nematode reproduced on alfalfa, but not on soybeans, tomato, or corn. Collectively, the evidence suggests that this finding represents the first record of <italic>H. medicaginis</italic> in North America. Definitive confirmation of this diagnosis would require COI sequence of eastern European isolates of this species.</p>
</abstract>

Specimens of Heterodera have been collected from alfalfa fields in Kearny County, Kansas & Carbon County, Montana. DNA barcoding with the COI mitochondrial gene indicate that the species is not Heterodera glycines, soybean cyst nematode, H. schachtii, sugar beet cyst nematode, or H. trifolii, clover cyst nematode. Maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees show that the alfalfa specimens form a sister clade most closely related to H. glycines, with a 4.7% mean pairwise sequence divergence across the 862 nucleotides of the COI marker. Morphological analyses of juveniles and cysts conform to the measurements of H. medicaginis, the alfalfa cyst nematode originally described from the USSR in 1971. Initial host testing demonstrated that the nematode reproduced on alfalfa, but not on soybeans, tomato, or corn. Collectively, the evidence suggests that this finding represents the first record of H. medicaginis in North America. Definitive confirmation of this diagnosis would require COI sequence of eastern European isolates of this species.

DNA barcoding evidence for the North American presence of alfalfa cyst nematode, <italic>Heterodera medicaginis</italic>


Journal of Nematology

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

DNA barcoding evidence for the North American presence of alfalfa cyst nematode, 


running-head

DNA barcoding evidence for the North American presence of alfalfa cyst nematode,

Specimens of Heterodera have been collected from alfalfa fields in Kearny County, Kansas & Carbon County, Montana. DNA barcoding with the COI mitochondrial...

DNA barcoding evidence for the North American presence of alfalfa cyst nematode, Heterodera medicaginis

Article Category: Arts & Humanities

Published Online: Apr 24, 2019

Page range: 1 - 17

Received: Sep 04, 2018

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/jofnem-2019-016

© 2019 Thomas Powers et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.