Page 27 - Volume 4, Issue 1, January 2011
Basic HTML Version
© Benaki Phytopathological Institute
1
Nematology Laboratory, Plant Protection Institute,
National Agricultural Research Foundation (N.AG.
RE.F.), PO BOX 2228, GR-71003 Heraklion, Crete,
Greece.
2
IMAR-CMA, Department of Life Sciences, University
of Coimbra, 3004-517 Coimbra, Portugal
Corresponding author:
Hellenic Plant Protection Journal
4:
25-30, 2011
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Root-knot nematodes (
Meloidogyne
spp.) in Greece
E.A. Tzortzakakis
1
, I.L.P.M. da Conceição
2
, M.C.V. dos Santos
2
and I.M. de O. Abrantes
2
Summary
The information presented in the current work on the occurrence of root-knot nematodes
(
Meloidogyne
spp.) in Greece was extracted from the literature and unpublished studies conducted by
the
authors. The species
M. javanica, M. incognita
,
M. arenaria
,
M. hapla
,
M. artiellia
and
M. exigua
had
been reported during the period 1963-1994 to occur on various host plants and species identification
was based on morphological characters. Since 1996, 52 isolates from Crete and 9 isolates from the
mainland of Greece were identified using molecular and/or biochemical markers. The species found
were
M. javanica, M. incognita
and
M. arenaria
. Twenty-six of these isolates were identified as
M. javan-
ica
(19 isolates)
, M. incognita
(5 isolates) and
M. arenaria
(2 isolates) on the basis of the esterase pheno-
types. All
M. javanica
isolates exhibited the typical J3 phenotype except one from Crete, which exhibit-
ed the J2 phenotype. The
M. incognita
and
M. arenaria
isolates revealed the I1 and A2 phenotypes, re-
spectively. Finally, the infestation of potato tubers by a
M. javanica
isolate (phenotype J3) is reported
for the first time in Greece.
Additional key words
: esterase phenotypes,
Meloidogyne arenaria, M. incognita, M. javanica
, potato
hological Abstracts, Series B, Plant Nema-
tology (Nematological Abstracts from 1992)
and other publications accessible/available
to the authors were the sources of informa-
tion used in the current work, along with
some, so far, unpublished studies conduct-
ed by the authors. Data of the
Meloidogyne
species identified during the period 1963-
1994 and the hosts on which they had been
detected are presented in Table 1. Published
reports, in which the specific host-nema-
tode associations were not clearly deter-
mined and information extracted from ab-
stracts, when the full text of the respective
papers was not available to the authors, are
also presented below.
The review of the status of
Meloidogyne
spp. in Greece until 1979 includes species as-
sociated with at least 85 host plants and list-
ed in Table 1 (7, 8). As
M. thamesi
is synony-
mous to
M. arenaria
(2), these two species are
listed together. In Crete,
M. javanica
,
M. incog-
nita
and
M. arenaria
were detected through-
out the coastal region-below 200 m altitude-
Phytonematology is a relatively new science
in the Mediterranean region. It was first de-
veloped during the 1950s as an experimen-
tal discipline in some countries and had an
increasing impetus in the following years
(27). Root-knot nematodes (RKN),
Meloidog-
yne
spp., are amongst the most economical-
ly important nematodes in agriculture, ex-
hibiting a broad host range (6) and a wide
distribution in the Mediterranean basin (27).
In Greece, RKN have been recorded in sever-
al areas and till the mid 90’s, species identi-
fication had been based on morphological
and morphometric characters and/or differ-
ential host tests. The objective of the pres-
ent work was to report on the status of the
occurrence of RKN in Greece. The Helmint-
