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12th Pacific Science Inter-Congress, 8-12 July 2013
University of the South Pacific, Laucala Bay Campus, Suva, Fiji
Barcoding plant pathogens
Bevan S. Weir
Landcare Research New Zealand,
[email protected]
Fungal and Bacterial plant pathogens present a major risk to
trade and primary production in the relatively isolated
ecosystems of the Pacific Island nations.
A major obstacle to managing the risk of these pathogens is
their rapid and accurate identification. Many pathogens are
cryptic species that cannot easily be resolved by
morphological identification. In addition new taxa are being
described that can only be practically identified by DNA
sequences.
Colletotrichum fungi are considered to be one of the top ten
important plant pathogens in the world, and have had a
history of confusing taxonomy. Over the past five years a
major taxonomic initiative was undertaken by several labs
worldwide to clarify their taxonomy. DNA sequencing and
voucher specimens were critical to this work, and now most
of these fungi can be identified by non-specialists using DNA
barcodes.
DNA barcoding can even be useful by itself in taxa without
recent taxonomic revisions. In New Zealand a study was
made of all Phomopsis/Diaporthe fungal cultures in the
national collection that were isolated from New Zealand. This
DNA barcode database allows the rapid identification of
fungal cultures isolated from imported plants, potentially
identifying fungi that may be new to New Zealand.
12th Pacific Science Inter-Congress, 8-12 July 2013
University of the South Pacific, Laucala Bay Campus, Suva, Fiji
The quality and utility of online DNA Barcode databases will
be discussed as well as the most useful barcoding genes.
Biodiversity collections such as culture collections and
herbaria that contain bacteria and fungi from the Pacific
region are critical to biosecurity & sustainable development.
Key Words: (fungi, bacteria, barcoding, biosecurity).