Cryptic species in plant-parasitic nematodes

This paper summarises the current knowledge concerning cryptic species of plant-parasitic nematode and briefly reviews the different methods available for their detection and characterisation. Cryptic species represent an important component of biodiversity, such speciation being common among plant-parasitic nematodes and occurring in diverse groups with different life history traits, including the spiral, virus vector, root-lesion and false root-knot nematodes. Cryptic species are important for a number of reasons, including food security, quarantine, non-chemical management technologies and species conservation, and should not be ignored. The magnitude of the phenomenon is largely unknown, but the available data on plant-parasitic nematodes demonstrate that reliance on morphology alone for species delimitation seriously underestimates the total number of taxa. Future research should focus on appropriately designed case studies using combined approaches, including large-scale, whole sample analyses by next-generation sequencing or proteomics in order to be able to answer the many questions that still remain.This research was supported by grant AGL2012-37521 from ‘Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad’ of Spain, grant KBBE 219262 ArimNET_ERANET FP7 2012-2015 Project PESTOLIVE ‘Contribution of olive history for the management of soilborne parasites in the Mediterranean basin’ from Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria (INIA), and grants P12-AGR 1486 and AGR-136 from ‘Consejería de Economía, Innvovación y Ciencia’ from Junta de Andalucía, and Union Europea, Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo regional, ‘Una manera de hacer Europa’.Peer Reviewe