Abstract
The ascomycete pathogen Ramularia collocygni
causes Ramularia leaf spot (RLS) on barley.
Although R. collo-cygni is considerd an emerging
disease of barley, little is known about genetic diversity
or population genetic structure of this pathogen.
We applied a set of polymorphic AFLP (Amplified
Fragment Length Polymorphism) markers to investigate
population genetic structure in two Northern European
populations of R. collo-cygni. The distribution
of AFLP alleles revealed low levels of population
subdivision and high levels of genetic diversity at both
locations. Our analyses included 87 isolates and of these 84 showed a unique genotype pattern. The genetic
structure of populations in Scotland and Denmark
is highly similar and we find no evidence of
population sub-division. An analysis of molecular variance
was used to show that 86 % of the variance is
attributable to within field genetic variance. In spite of
the high levels of genetic and genotypic diversity in
the R. collo-cygni populations, we find significant
evidence of linkage disequilibrium among the AFLP
alleles using a multilocus analysis. We propose that
the high levels of genotypic diversity and the lack of
population differentiation result from considerable levels of gene flow between populations most likely
mediated by seed borne dispersal of inoculum.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 51 - 60 |
Number of pages | 10 |
Journal | European Journal of Plant Pathology |
Volume | 136 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Print publication - May 2013 |
Bibliographical note
1023370Keywords
- AFLP
- Diversity index
- Genetic differentiation
- Linkage disequilibrium
- Population genetics
- Ramularia collo-cygni