An Emerging Pathogen from Rotted Chestnut in China: Gnomoniopsis daii sp. nov.

Abstract

Nut quality is fundamental to the economic viability of the Chinese sweet chestnut industry, but fruit rot disease significantly reduces this quality. In this study, we investigated chestnut rot in Anhui and Hubei provinces in China. Typical brown rot symptoms were observed, affecting nuts from different plantations. Isolates were obtained from symptomatic tissues of rotted fruits that were identified based on morphological comparison and phylogenetic analyses of partial internal transcribed spacer (ITS), and tef1 and tub2 gene sequences. The inoculation results showed that the tested fungal species is pathogenic to chestnut fruits. Hence, a new and severe pathogen that causes Chinese sweet chestnut brown rot, Gnomoniopsis daii sp. nov., is introduced herein.

Gnomoniopsis chinensis (Gnomoniaceae, Diaporthales), a new fungus causing canker of Chinese chestnut in Hebei Province, China

“…Three Gnomoniopsis species have been discovered from the host genus Castanea. They share similar conidial dimension (6.0-9.0 × 2.2-3.5 µm in Gnomoniopsis chinensis vs. 5.0-8.0 × 2.0-3.5 µm in G. daii vs. 6.0-9.5 × 2.0-4.0 µm in G. smithogilvyi) (Crous et al 2012;Jiang and Tian 2019). However, we can distinguish them easily by the phylogram of ITS, tef1 and tub2 (Fig.…”

“…Gnomoniopsis smithogilvyi (syn. G. castaneae) and G. daii (Crous et al 2012;Jiang and Tian 2019). Gnomoniopsis smithogilvyi and G. castaneae were proposed by two independent studies, from rotten fruits of Castanea sativa (Crous et al 2012;Visentin et al 2012).…”

“…In recent studies, several important fungal pathogens have been reported from chestnut trees, including Aurantiosacculus castaneae, Cryphonectria neoparasitica, Cry. parasitica, Endothia chinensis and Gnomoniopsis daii from C. mollissima (Jiang et al 2018a(Jiang et al , 2019bJiang and Tian 2019); Cry. parasitica, G. smithogilvyi (syn.…”

“…Moreover, this species has been reported as a severe bark pathogen on Castanea in several countries Rai 2013, 2015;Pasche et al 2016;Lewis et al 2017;Trapiello et al 2018;Lione et al 2019). In China, Gnomoniopsis from rotten Chinese chestnut has proved to be a different species, namely Gnomoniopsis daii (Jiang and Tian 2019). In this study, we focused on the symptom, taxonomy and pathogenicity aspects of Gnomoniopsis species from cankered tissues on Chinese chestnut trees.…”

Identification of six Cytospora species on Chinese chestnut in China

“…nomic concepts of families, genera and species in Diaporthales (Rossman et al 2007, Senanayake et al 2017, 2018, including species of Aurantiosacculus, Coryneum, Cryphonectria, Dendrostoma, Endothia, Gnomoniopsis, Neopseudomelanconis and Ophiognomonia (Gong et al 2017, Jiang et al 2018b, 2018c, 2019a, 2019b, Jiang and Tian 2019.…”