Biological Vectors for the Dispersal of Colletotrichum Gloeosporioides

Green treefrogs (Hyla cinerea) and grasshoppers (Melanoplus differentialis and Conocephalus fasciatus) commonly observed in Arkansas rice fields, are dispersal vectors for Colletotrichum gloeosporioides f. sp. aeschynomens, a causal agent of anthracnose of northern jointvetch. Treefrogs and grasshoppers captured from rice or soybean fields with diseased northern jointvetch were placed in containers in contact with healthy northern jointvetch plants. An average of 90% of northern jointvetch plants was infected by the pathogen with up to 10 lesions per plant using treefrog vectors. Experiments were done in the greenhouse on frog dispersal by monitoring disease development from a point source in closed rice-weed patches. Treefrogs dispersed the pathogen from the source plant to healthy plants resulting in 95% infection. In the field, grasshoppers were frequently observed feeding on anthracnose lesions. In six separate experiments, approximately 20% of grasshoppers collected from fields with diseased northern jointvetch transferred the disease after feeding or contacting healthy plants. By feeding pathogen-free grasshoppers on anthracnose lesions, we found that 66% of these grasshoppers transferred the disease to healthy plants. The grasshopper may be important in spreading the inoculum among weed patches. Green treefrogs appear to be efficient vectors of the disease because they preferred northern jointvetch plants as shelter

Encapsulation enhances protoplast fusant stability

A barrier to cost-efficient biomanufacturing is the instability of engineered genetic elements, such as plasmids. Instability can also manifest at the whole-genome level, when fungal dikaryons revert to parental species due to nuclear segregation during cell division. Here, we show that by encapsulating Saccharomyces cerevisiae-Pichia stipitis dikaryons in an alginate matrix, we can limit cell division and preserve their expanded metabolic capabilities. As a proxy to cellulosic ethanol production, we tested the capacity of such cells to carry out ethanologenic fermentation of glucose and xylose, examining substrate use, ploidy, and cell viability in relation to planktonic fusants, as well as in relation to planktonic and encapsulated cell cultures consisting of mixtures of these species. Glucose and xylose consumption and ethanol production by encapsulated dikaryons were greater than planktonic controls. Simultaneous co-fermentation did not occur; rather the order and kinetics of glucose and xylose catabolism by encapsulated dikaryons were similar to cultures where the two species were encapsulated together. Over repeated cycles of fed-batch culture, encapsulated S. cerevisiae-P. stipitis fusants exhibited a dramatic increase in genomic stability, relative to planktonic fusants. Encapsulation also increased the stability of antibiotic-resistance plasmids used to mark each species and preserved a fixed ratio of S. cerevisiae to P. stipitis cells in mixed cultures. Our data demonstrate how encapsulating cells in an extracellular matrix restricts cell division and, thereby, preserves the stability and biological activity of entities ranging from genomes to plasmids to mixed populations, each of which can be essential to cost-efficient biomanufacturing

Colletotrichum acutatum var. fioriniae (teleomorph: Glomerella acutata var. fioriniae var. nov.) infection of a scale insect.

An epizootic has been reported in Fiorinia externa populations in New York, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Infected insects have profuse sclerotial masses enclosing their bodies. The most commonly isolated microorganism from infected F. externa was Colletotrichum sp. A morphological and molecular characterization of this fungus indicated that it is closely related to phytopathogenic C. acutatum isolates. Isolates of Colletotrichum sp. from F. externa in areas of the epizootic were similar genetically and were named Colletotrichum acutatum var. fioriniae var. nov. based on our findings. In vitro and in planta mating observed between isolates of C. acutatum var. fioriniae could serve as a possible source of genetic variation and might give rise to new biotypes with a propensity to infect insects. Only one other strain, C. gloeosporioides f. sp. ortheziidae, has been reported to show entomopathogenic activity

Geographic variation in volatile leaf oils (terpenes) in natural populations of Helianthus annuus (Asteraceae, Sunflowers)

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