Diversidade de Colletotrichum spp. em seringueira

Abstract

Colletotrichum species, agents of the anthracnose disease of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis), cause damage to several producing areas of the country. The objective of this study was to investigate the diversity of Colletotrichum from rubber in Bahia State by employing morphological and molecular characteristics and patogenicity tests. Twenty-three isolates were characterized on the basis of color of their colonies, conidial size, pathogenicity tests and analyses of a fragment of the gene 5‟-tef1. Sequences of 5‟-tef1 had the introns removed and the joined exons were used to build phylogenetic trees with the Neighbor Joining and Maximum Parsimony methods. Morphological and molecular analyses did not show any relation between them nor with the pathogenicity tests performed. The spores showed overlapping sizes and none of the groups obtained in the phylogenetic trees were coherent when the bootstrap values and the names of the recently described species within the C. gloeosporioides group are considered. Thus, it was not possible to distinguish the Colletotrichum species in the C. gloeosporioides group on the basis of the characteristics studied. Additional studies employing sequencing of other genomic regions and a greater number of isolates from rubber are necessary to understand the diversity of Colletotrichum in this tree species.