Characterization of Diaporthe species on Camellia oleifera in Hunan Province, with descriptions of two new species
Qin Yang, Jie Tang, Zhou Guo
Abstract
Tea-oil tree ( Camellia oleifera Abel.) is an important edible oil woody plant with a planting area over 3,800,000 hectares in southern China. Species of Diaporthe inhabit a wide range of plant hosts as plant pathogens, endophytes and saprobes. At present, relatively little is known about the taxonomy and genetic diversity of Diaporthe on C. oleifera . Here, we conducted an extensive field survey in Hunan Province in China to identify and characterise Diaporthe species associated with tea-oil leaf spots. As a result, eleven isolates of Diaporthe were obtained from symptomatic C. oleifera leaves. These isolates were studied by applying a polyphasic approach including morphological and phylogenetic analyses of partial ITS, cal , his3 , tef1 and tub2 gene regions. Two new Diaporthe species ( D. camelliae-oleiferae and D. hunanensis ) were proposed and described herein, and C. oleifera was revealed to be new host records of D. hubeiensis and D. sojae . This study indicated there is a potential of more undiscovered Diaporthe species from C. oleifera in China.