Genetic structure of natural populations of the grass endophyte Epichloë festucae in semiarid grasslands

Plants of red fescue (Festuca rubra), a commercially important turf grass, are infected by the fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae in semiarid natural grasslands, known as dehesas, in western Spain. We used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to analyse the genetic polymorphism exis...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inMolecular ecology Vol. 11; no. 3; pp. 355 - 364
Main Authors Arroyo García, R., Martínez Zapater, J. M., García Criado, B., Zabalgogeazcoa, I.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oxford, UK Blackwell Science Ltd 01.03.2002
Subjects
AFLP
clonal lineages
endophytes
Epichloe festucae
Epichloë festucae
Festuca rubra
Genetic Variation
grasslands
Hypocreales - classification
Hypocreales - genetics
Phylogeny
Poaceae - microbiology
Polymorphism, Genetic
Spain
Spain
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Plants of red fescue (Festuca rubra), a commercially important turf grass, are infected by the fungal endophyte Epichloë festucae in semiarid natural grasslands, known as dehesas, in western Spain. We used amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) markers to analyse the genetic polymorphism existing in two natural populations of Epichloë festucae. Linkage disequilibrium and the presence of clonal lineages indicated that nonrecombinant asexual reproduction predominates in both populations. However, most genetic variation detected was found to occur within populations, with only a moderate amount of genetic differentiation between populations (FST: 0.197). Overall, the study suggests that dehesa grasslands are useful reservoirs of Epichloë festucae endophytes, and provides information on population structure which is relevant to design sampling strategies.
Bibliography:ArticleID:MEC1456
ark:/67375/WNG-8P2HKN1L-G
istex:FE5081B03006409F9B4478BF3375DB0D2BFA1AC8
ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
ObjectType-Article-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
ISSN:0962-1083
1365-294X
DOI:10.1046/j.0962-1083.2001.01456.x