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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1489790

Investigating a new alarming flavescence doreè outbreak in Tuscany (Central Italy): molecular characterization and map gene typing elucidate the complex phytoplasma ecology in the vineyard agro-ecosystem

Provisionally accepted
Athos Pedrelli Athos Pedrelli 1Marco Carli Marco Carli 1Alessandra Panattoni Alessandra Panattoni 1*Elisa Pellegrini Elisa Pellegrini 1Domenico Rizzo Domenico Rizzo 2Cristina Nali Cristina Nali 1Lorenzo Cotrozzi Lorenzo Cotrozzi 1
  • 1 Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
  • 2 Laboratory of Phytopathological Diagnostics and Molecular Biology, Plant Protection Service of Tuscany, Pistoia, Italy

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Flavescence dorée (FD) is a major disease for grapevine in Europe, despite the quarantine status of its causal agent (FD phytoplasma, FDp) and the mandatory monitoring and vector control practices.As alarming FD epidemic outbreaks continue to appear in Tuscany (Central Italy), a four-year survey was carried out in the main wine-growing areas of the region, where the FD presence was investigated in both primary and secondary FDp hosts and vectors, i.e., Vitis vinifera (VV), Clematis vitalba (CV), Alnus glutinosa (AG), Scaphoideus titanus (ST) and Dictyophara europaea (DE). This work (i) confirmed the FD diffusion in almost the whole Tuscany, and even with an increased occurrence rate (around 50% of samples tested positive); (ii) highlighted a complex FDp ecology also in Tuscany vineyard agro-ecosystems, as FDp was reported not only in VV and ST, but also in secondary vectors (DE) and hosts (AG and CV); (iii) reported nine FDp strains (three of which were novel), belonging to all the three methionine aminopeptidase (map)-clusters, i.e., map-FD1, -FD2 and -FD3, with the map-FD3/M51 genotype mostly reported in VV, but also in DE and CV; and (iv) further confirmed a complex FDp ecology in the vineyard agro-ecosystem, also by phylogenetic analyses carried out at both Italian and European levels, which also showed some relations between the Tuscany FDp strains and those reported in the Balkans and the French scenario. We believe that the outcomes here reported will be useful to prevent and control the spread of the harmful FD.

    Keywords: Alnus glutinosa, Clematis vitalba, Dictiophara europaea, Gene typing, Grapevine yellows, Scaphoideus titanus, Vitis vinifera

    Received: 01 Sep 2024; Accepted: 19 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Pedrelli, Carli, Panattoni, Pellegrini, Rizzo, Nali and Cotrozzi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Alessandra Panattoni, Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy

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