Publications

4381

A protocol to successfully transmit the huanglongbing (HLB) pathogen, ‘Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus’, between citrus plants by using the Asian citrus psyllid (ACP) and an alternative way to help growers control ACP are proposed. Best results were obtained when pathogen acquisition by adults reared on fully symptomatic ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’-positive plants, latency, and inoculation occurred at ambient air temperatures ranging from 24 to 28°C and when a single infective adult ACP was confined for 7 days on soft, newly developing vegetative shoots (stages v2 to v4). No infection resulted from confinement of infective ACP adults on mature leaves (stage v6). Under the described conditions, single ACP adults could successfully transmit ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’ to an average of 56.5% (35 to 83%) of plantlets with v2 to v4 shoots growing in 0.3-liter tubes and to 80.5% (76 to 86%) of plants with v2 to v4 shoots growing in 4.7-liter pots. The use of single insects and plantlets reduces labor, space, and other resources necessary to undertake transmission tests. It also reduces time needed for transmission studies and should help accelerate research on HLB. The results were used to develop an index for favorability to infection (IFI) to determine orchard vulnerabilities to ‘Ca. Liberibacter asiaticus’. The IFI is based on the heterogeneous population of new shoots that occurs on tree canopies and may offer alternative or complementary alternatives to the laborious and costly insect surveys currently used in most instances to determine threshold levels for insecticide applications.

In sweet cherry (Prunus avium), infection by ‘Candidatus Phytoplasma pruni’ results in small fruit with poor color and taste, rendering the fruit unmarketable. Yet the disease pathology is poorly understood, particularly at the cultivar level. Therefore, in this study we examined the physiological effects of Ca. P. pruni infection across a range of cultivars and locations in eastern Washington. We found that infection could be separated into early and established stages based on pathogen titer, which correlated with disease severity, including fruit size, color, and sugar and metabolite content. Furthermore, we observed that the effects of early-stage infections were largely indistinguishable from healthy, uninfected plants. Cultivar- and location-specific disease outcomes were observed with regard to size, color, sugar content, and citric acid content. This study presents the first in-depth assessment of X-disease symptoms and biochemical content of fruit from commercially grown sweet cherry cultivars known to be infected with Ca. P. pruni.

Abstract Little is known about the cell physiology of anammox bacteria growing at extremely low growth rates. Here, “Candidatus Brocadia sinica” and “Candidatus Scalindua sp.” were grown in continuous anaerobic membrane bioreactors (MBRs) with complete biomass retention to determine maintenance energy (i.e., power) requirements at near-zero growth rates. After prolonged retentostat cultivations, the specific growth rates (μ) of “Ca. B. sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp.” decreased to 0.000023 h−1 (doubling time of 1255 days) and 0.000157 h−1 (184 days), respectively. Under these near-zero growth conditions, substrate was continuously utilized to meet maintenance energy demands (me) of 6.7 ± 0.7 and 4.3 ± 0.7 kJ mole of biomass-C−1 h−1 for “Ca. B. sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp.”, which accorded with the theoretically predicted values of all anaerobic microorganisms (9.7 and 4.4 kJ mole of biomass-C−1 h−1at 37 °C and 28 °C, respectively). These me values correspond to 13.4 × 10−15 and 8.6 × 10−15 watts cell−1 for “Ca. B. sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp.”, which were five orders of magnitude higher than the basal power limit for natural settings (1.9 × 10−19 watts cells−1). Furthermore, the minimum substrate concentrations required for growth (Smin) were calculated to be 3.69 ± 0.21 and 0.09 ± 0.05 μM NO2− for “Ca. B. sinica” and “Ca. Scalindua sp.”, respectively. These results match the evidence that “Ca. Scalindua sp.” with lower maintenance power requirement and Smin are better adapted to energy-limited natural environments than “Ca. B. sinica”, suggesting the importance of these parameters on ecological niche differentiation in natural environments.

Abstract Members of the verrucomicrobial clade ‘ Candidatus Udaeobacter’ rank among the most dominant bacterial phylotypes in soil. Nevertheless, despite this global prevalence, in‐depth analyses with respect to pH preferences of ‘ Ca . Udaeobacter’ representatives are still lacking. Here, we utilized a recently designed primer pair, specifically targeting ‘ Ca . Udaeobacter’, to investigate links between soil pH and the abundance as well as phylotype composition of this largely unexplored verrucomicrobial clade. Based on 150 forest and 150 grassland soils, comprising a broad pH range, we determined the highest total abundance of ‘ Ca . Udaeobacter’ in strongly acidic soil (pH, ~5.1) and, noteworthy, in ultra‐acidic soil (pH < 3.5) and at a pH ≥ 7, its abundance drastically declined. When we analysed the six most dominant amplicon sequence variants affiliated with ‘ Ca . Udaeobacter’ separately, their abundances peaked within a pH range of approximately 4.7–5.2, and only in one case at slightly acidic soil pH (pH, 6.1). Our study benefits from a combination of quantitative real‐time PCR and high‐throughput amplicon sequencing, enabling for the first time a highly specific abundance analysis of representatives affiliated with ‘ Ca . Udaeobacter’, which revealed that this globally abundant verrucomicrobial clade shows preferences for acidic soil.