scholarly journals ‘Resistance Mixtures’ Reduce Insect Herbivory in Strawberry (Fragaria vesca) Plantations

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuuli-Marjaana Koski ◽  
Sanne de Jong ◽  
Anne Muola ◽  
Daniel B. Amby ◽  
Erik Andreasson ◽  
...  

The transition toward more sustainable plant protection with reduced pesticide use is difficult, because there is no “silver bullet” available among nonchemical tools. Integrating several plant protection approaches may thus be needed for efficient pest management. Recently, increasing the genetic diversity of plantations via cultivar mixing has been proposed as a possible method to reduce pest damage. However, previous studies have not addressed either the relative efficiency of exploiting cultivar mixing and intrinsic plant herbivore resistance or the potential utility of combining these approaches to increase cropping security. Here, using a full factorial experiment with 60 woodland strawberry plots, we tested for the relative and combined effect of cultivar mixing and intrinsic plant resistance on herbivore damage and yield. The experiment comprised two levels of diversity (“high” with 10 varieties and “low” with two varieties) and three levels of resistance (“resistant” comprising only varieties intrinsically resistant against strawberry leaf beetle Galerucella tenella; “susceptible” with susceptible varieties only; and “resistance mixtures” with 50:50 mixtures of resistant and susceptible varieties). The experiment was carried out over two growing seasons. Use of resistant varieties either alone or intermixed with susceptible varieties in “resistance mixtures” reduced insect herbivory. Interestingly, resistant varieties not only reduced the mean damage in “resistance mixtures” by themselves being less damaged, but also protected intermixed susceptible varieties via associational resistance. The effect of higher genetic diversity was less evident, reducing herbivory only at the highest level of herbivore damage. In general, herbivory was lowest in plots with high diversity that included at least some resistant varieties and highest in low diversity plots consisting only of susceptible varieties. Despite this, no significant difference in yield (fruit biomass) was found, indicating that strawberry may be relatively tolerant. Our results demonstrate that combined use of high genetic diversity and resistant varieties can help reduce pest damage and provide a useful tool for sustainable food production. “Resistance mixtures” may be particularly useful for sensitive food crops where susceptible varieties are high yielding that could not be completely replaced by resistant ones.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. e0246598
Author(s):  
Paksathorn Kietsiri ◽  
Chonchanok Muangnapoh ◽  
Woradee Lurchachaiwong ◽  
Paphavee Lertsethtakarn ◽  
Ladaporn Bodhidatta ◽  
...  

Arcobacter butzleri is an emerging zoonotic food-borne and water-borne pathogen that can cause diarrhea in humans. The global prevalence of A. butzleri infection is underestimated, and little is known about their phenotypic and genotypic characterization. The aim of this study was to determine antimicrobial susceptibility (AST) profiles, detect related virulence genes, and classify sequence type (ST) of A. butzleri isolates obtained from human stool and food samples. A total of 84 A. butzleri isolates were obtained from human diarrheal (n = 25), non-diarrheal (n = 24) stool, and food (n = 35) samples in Thailand. They were evaluated for phenotypic identification by conventional microbiological procedures and AST by Kirby-Bauer disc diffusion method as well as virulence genes detection. Representative isolates from each origin were selected based on the presence of virulence genes and AST profiles to analyze genetic diversity by multilocus sequence typing (MLST). All isolates showed resistance to nalidixic acid 40.5% (34/84), ciprofloxacin 11.9% (10/84), azithromycin 8.3% (7/84), and erythromycin 3.6% (3/84). Regarding the ten virulence genes detected, cj1349, mviN and pldA had the highest prevalence 100% (84/84), followed by tlyA 98.8% (83/84), cadF 97.6% (82/84), ciaB 71.4% (60/84), hecA and hecB 22.6% (19/84), iroE 15.5% (13/84) and irgA 10.7% (9/84), respectively. Three virulence genes were present among A. butzleri isolates of human diarrheal stool and food samples, with a significant difference observed among isolates; hecB [36% (9/25) and 8.6% (3/35)], hecA [36% (9/25) and 5.7% (2/35)], and irgA [24% (6/25) and 2.9% (1/35)] (p < 0.05), respectively. The hecA and hecB virulence genes functions are related to the mechanism of hemolysis, while irgA supports a bacterial nutritional requirement. MLST analysis of 26 A. butzleri isolates revealed that 16 novel STs exhibited high genetic diversity. The results of this study is useful for understanding potentially pathogenic and antimicrobial-resistant A. butzleri in Thailand. The pathogenic virulence markers hecB, hecA, and irgA have the potential to be developed for rapid diagnostic detection in human diarrheal stool. No significant relationships among STs and sources of origin were observed. Little is known about A. butzleri, the mechanism of action of these virulence genes, is a topic that needs further investigation.


Author(s):  
Ran Zhuo ◽  
Xiaofeng Ding ◽  
Stephen B. Freedman ◽  
Bonita E. Lee ◽  
Samina Ali ◽  
...  

Objectives: Sapovirus is increasingly recognized as an important cause of acute gastroenteritis (AGE) worldwide, however studies of prevalence, genetic diversity and strain-specific clinical implications have been scarce. Methods: To fill this knowledge gap, we used reverse transcription real-time PCR and sequencing of the partial major capsid protein VP1 gene to analyze stool specimens and rectal swabs obtained from 3347 children with AGE and 1355 asymptomatic controls (all <18 years old) collected between December 2014 and August 2018 in Alberta, Canada. Results: Sapovirus was identified in 9.5% (317/3347) of the children with AGE and 2.9% of controls. GI.1 (36%) was the predominant genotype identified, followed by GI.2 (18%), GII.5 (8%) and GII.3 (6%). Rare genotypes GII.1, GII.2, GV.1, GII.4, GIV.1, GI.3 and GI.7 were also seen. Sapovirus was detected year-round, peaking during the winter months of November to January. The exception was the 2016-2017 season when GI.2 overtook GI.1 as the predominant strain with a high detection rate persisting into April. We did not observe significant difference in the severity of gastroenteritis by genogroup or genotype. Repeated infection by sapovirus of different genogroups occurred in three controls who developed AGE later. Conclusions: Our data suggests that sapovirus is a common cause of AGE in children with high genetic diversity.


Pathogens ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Jiayu Li ◽  
Fuxian Yang ◽  
Ruobing Liang ◽  
Sheng Guo ◽  
Yaqiong Guo ◽  
...  

Cryptosporidiumfelis is an important cause of feline and human cryptosporidiosis. However, the transmission of this pathogen between humans and cats remains controversial, partially due to a lack of genetic characterization of isolates from cats. The present study was conducted to examine the genetic diversity of C. felis in cats in China and to assess their potential zoonotic transmission. A newly developed subtyping tool based on a sequence analysis of the 60-kDa glycoprotein (gp60) gene was employed to identify the subtypes of 30 cat-derived C. felis isolates from Guangdong and Shanghai. Altogether, 20 C. felis isolates were successfully subtyped. The results of the sequence alignment showed a high genetic diversity, with 13 novel subtypes and 2 known subtypes of the XIXa subtype family being identified. The known subtypes were previously detected in humans, while some of the subtypes formed well-supported subclusters with human-derived subtypes from other countries in a phylogenetic analysis of the gp60 sequences. The results of this study confirmed the high genetic diversity of the XIXa subtype family of C. felis. The common occurrence of this subtype family in both humans and cats suggests that there could be cross-species transmission of C. felis.


Parasitology ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 147 (2) ◽  
pp. 231-239
Author(s):  
Shahabeddin Sarvi ◽  
Laya Ebrahimi Behrestaghi ◽  
Abbas Alizadeh ◽  
Seyed Abdollah Hosseini ◽  
Shaban Gohardieh ◽  
...  

AbstractCysticercus tenuicollis as metacestode of Taenia hydatigena is the most prevalent taeniid species in livestock. Eighty-eight C. tenuicollis samples were collected from sheep (n = 44) and goats (n = 44) of the northern Iran from 2015 to 2016. The isolated parasites were characterized by morphometric keys. The DNA of the larval stage was extracted, amplified and sequenced targeting mitochondrial 12S rRNA and Cox 1 markers. A significant difference in larval rostellar hook length was observed in 12S rRNA haplotypes. Analysis of molecular variance of 12S rRNA indicated a moderate genetic diversity in the C. tenuicollis isolates. The pairwise sequence distance of C. tenuicollis showed an intra-species diversity of 0.3–0.5% and identity of 99.5–100%. Using the 12S rRNA sequence data we found a moderate genetic difference (Fst; 0.05421) in C. tenucollis isolates collected from livestock of the northern and southeastern regions of Iran. We concluded that the genetic variants of C. tenuicollis are being undoubtedly distributing mostly in different parts of Iran. Further studies with a larger number of T. hydatigena isolates collected from various intermediate and definitive hosts are needed to study this evolutionary assumption and also to determine the apparent genetic differences observed in the studied regions.


Diversity ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 40
Author(s):  
Evgeny Genelt-Yanovskiy ◽  
Yixuan Li ◽  
Ekaterina Stratanenko ◽  
Natalia Zhuravleva ◽  
Natalia Strelkova ◽  
...  

Ophiura sarsii is a common brittle star species across the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions of the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. Ophiurasarsii is among the dominant echinoderms in the Barents Sea. We studied the genetic diversity of O.sarsii by sequencing the 548 bp fragment of the mitochondrial COI gene. Ophiurasarsii demonstrated high genetic diversity in the Barents Sea. Both major Atlantic mtDNA lineages were present in the Barents Sea and were evenly distributed between the northern waters around Svalbard archipelago and the southern part near Murmansk coast of Kola Peninsula. Both regions, and other parts of the O.sarsii range, were characterized by high haplotype diversity with a significant number of private haplotypes being mostly satellites to the two dominant haplotypes, each belonging to a different mtDNA clade. Demographic analyses indicated that the demographic and spatial expansion of O.sarsii in the Barents Sea most plausibly has started in the Bølling–Allerød interstadial during the deglaciation of the western margin of the Barents Sea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 1612
Author(s):  
Werner Ruppitsch ◽  
Andjela Nisic ◽  
Patrick Hyden ◽  
Adriana Cabal ◽  
Jasmin Sucher ◽  
...  

In many dairy products, Leuconostoc spp. is a natural part of non-starter lactic acid bacteria (NSLAB) accounting for flavor development. However, data on the genomic diversity of Leuconostoc spp. isolates obtained from cheese are still scarce. The focus of this study was the genomic characterization of Leuconostoc spp. obtained from different traditional Montenegrin brine cheeses with the aim to explore their diversity and provide genetic information as a basis for the selection of strains for future cheese production. In 2019, sixteen Leuconostoc spp. isolates were obtained from white brine cheeses from nine different producers located in three municipalities in the northern region of Montenegro. All isolates were identified as Ln. mesenteroides. Classical multilocus sequence tying (MLST) and core genome (cg) MLST revealed a high diversity of the Montenegrin Ln. mesenteroides cheese isolates. All isolates carried genes of the bacteriocin biosynthetic gene clusters, eight out of 16 strains carried the citCDEFG operon, 14 carried butA, and all 16 isolates carried alsS and ilv, genes involved in forming important aromas and flavor compounds. Safety evaluation indicated that isolates carried no pathogenic factors and no virulence factors. In conclusion, Ln. mesenteroides isolates from Montenegrin traditional cheeses displayed a high genetic diversity and were unrelated to strains deposited in GenBank.


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