title: Morphological and molecular characterisation of Geosmithia species on European elms.
abstract: Species of the genus Geosmithia are associated with insect species, mainly bark beetles. On Ulmus spp., the same beetles are also vectors of Ophiostoma ulmi s.l., the agent of Dutch elm disease (DED), a worldwide elm disease. Aim of this paper is to characterise Geosmithia species associated with elms and/or elm beetles in Europe. Seventy-two strains representative of all morphological taxonomic units were used to build a phylogenetic tree based on ITS, β-tubulin and elongation factor 1-α gene regions. On the basis of molecular and morpho-physiological traits, seven taxonomic entities were identified. In addition to the species previously known our results assigned strains previously identified as Geosmithia pallida to two separate taxa: Geosmithia sp. 2 and Geosmithia sp. 5. Two new species, Geosmithia omnicola and Geosmithia ulmacea, are described. Two strains were assigned to the partially described species Geosmithia sp. 20. Geosmithia species living on Ulmus do not discriminate between elm species, but between different environments. The association between Ulmus and Geosmithia is common, stable, and seems to be related to specific vectors. The relationship between Geosmithia and Ophiostoma would deserve further investigation, as these fungi share the same vectors and habitat for a significant part of their life cycles.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, C.N.R. via Madonna del Piano, 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy. Electronic address: alessia.pepori@ipsp.cnr.it.
authors.forename: Alessia L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Pepori
authors.affiliation: Institute of Microbiology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (ASCR), v.v.i, Videnská 1083, 142 20 Praha 4, Czech Republic; Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Benatská 2, 128 01 Praha 2, Czech Republic. Electronic address: mkolarik@biomed.cas.cz.
authors.forename: Miroslav
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kolařík
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, University of Florence, via Madonna del Piano 6, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy. Electronic address: p.bettini@unifi.it.
authors.forename: Priscilla P
authors.initials: PP
authors.lastname: Bettini
authors.affiliation: Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest Systems, University of Tuscia, via San Camillo de Lellis s.n.c., 01100 Viterbo, Italy. Electronic address: vettrain@unitus.it.
authors.forename: Anna Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Vettraino
authors.affiliation: Institute for Sustainable Plant Protection, C.N.R. via Madonna del Piano, 10, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy. Electronic address: alberto.santini@ipsp.cnr.it.
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Santini
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D001517:Coleoptera / Q000382:microbiology*; D004271:DNA, Fungal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D005060:Europe; D014644:Genetic Variation; D006999:Hypocreales / Q000145:classification* / Q000166:cytology / Q000235:genetics / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D008853:Microscopy; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D020648:Peptide Elongation Factor 1 / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D014404:Tubulin / Q000235:genetics; D034403:Ulmus / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D004271:DNA, Fungal; D021903:DNA, Ribosomal Spacer; D020648:Peptide Elongation Factor 1; D014404:Tubulin
keywords: Geosmithia omnicola; Geosmithia spp.; Geosmithia ulmacea; Phylogenetic analysis; Ulmus