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First Report of Diplodia quercivora and Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme Associated with Cankers and Necrosis of Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in Declining Stands in Southern Italy
Del Grosso, C.; Palmieri, D.; Marchese, L.; Melissano, L.; Lima, G. First Report of Diplodia quercivora and Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme Associated with Cankers and Necrosis of Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in Declining Stands in Southern Italy. J. Fungi2024, 10, 35.
Del Grosso, C.; Palmieri, D.; Marchese, L.; Melissano, L.; Lima, G. First Report of Diplodia quercivora and Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme Associated with Cankers and Necrosis of Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in Declining Stands in Southern Italy. J. Fungi 2024, 10, 35.
Del Grosso, C.; Palmieri, D.; Marchese, L.; Melissano, L.; Lima, G. First Report of Diplodia quercivora and Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme Associated with Cankers and Necrosis of Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in Declining Stands in Southern Italy. J. Fungi2024, 10, 35.
Del Grosso, C.; Palmieri, D.; Marchese, L.; Melissano, L.; Lima, G. First Report of Diplodia quercivora and Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme Associated with Cankers and Necrosis of Holm Oak (Quercus ilex) in Declining Stands in Southern Italy. J. Fungi 2024, 10, 35.
Abstract
The emergence of new plant diseases is an increasingly important concern. Climate change is likely to be among the factors causing most of the emerging diseases endangering forest and tree heritage around the world. Such diseases may be caused by latent pathogens or microorganisms cryptically associated with plants. The shift from a non-pathogenic to a pathogenic stage may depend on physiological alterations of the host, environmental changes and/or stress factors. In some woods of the Salento peninsula (Apulia region, Italy) sudden declines of holm oak plants (Quercus ilex L.) have been observed since 2016. The morphological and molecular characterization of representative fungal isolates associated with canker and necrosis in declining plants indicated that these isolates belong to the Botryosphaeriaceae family, and the most frequent species were Diplodia corticola and Diplodia quercivora, followed by Neofusicoccum vitifusiforme. In artificially inoculated young holm oak plants, both D. corticola and D. quercivora species produced intense and severe subcortical and leaf margin necrosis. N. vitifusiforme, although less aggressive, induced the same symptoms. Our research in addition to confirm the involvement of D. corticola in olm oak decline, represents the first report of D. quercivora as a new pathogen on Quercus ilex in Italy. Furthermore, to the best of our knowledge, we also found N. vitifusiforme as a new pathogen on Q. ilex for the first time.
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