Distribution and Diversity of Beauveria in Boreal Forests of Northern European Russia.

The distribution and genetic diversity of 91 of Beauveria isolates collected during a long-term survey in boreal forests of northern European Russia was studied. Based on morphological and sequence analysis of TEF and Bloc loci, three Beauveria spp. were identified: B. pseudobassiana, B. bassiana, and B. caledonica, with abundance of 81, 11, and 8%, respectively. Through multilocus sequencing, four haplotypes of B. bassiana and two haplotypes of B. caledonica were detected. Twelve haplotypes of B. pseudobassiana with non-random distribution were identified. Two haplotypes of B. pseudobassiana were the most abundant and widespread occurring across the whole study area, whereas others tended to be more specific to either the north or south of the study area, indicating the presence of different subpopulations. For further analysis of these putative subpopulations, southern and northern areas were separated along the boundary of the Köppen-Geiger climate zones (dfb and dfc), and the genetic structure was examined by analysis of molecular variance and spatial autocorrelation. Molecular evidence of intraspecific recombination of B. pseudobassiana and B. bassiana across northern European Russia area was indicated.

Race Characterization and Molecular Genotyping of Puccinia triticina Populations from Durum Wheat in Russia.

Variability of the Russian population of Puccinia triticina from durum wheat was studied with virulence and simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers. The pathogen was sampled during 2017 to 2019 in all regions with sizable durum wheat (Triticum durum) growing areas from winter (North Caucasus) and spring (Middle Volga, Ural, and West Siberia) wheat. A total of 474 isolates were tested on a set of 20 Lr-gene lines. Molecular genotypes for 105 selected isolates were determined at 11 SSR loci. Variable virulence/avirulence reaction was observed only on three Lr-gene lines, whereas just five SSR loci were polymorphic with two alleles at each. Seven different virulence phenotypes and 11 SSR genotypes were found among 474 and 105 isolates, respectively, indicating a very low variability of the pathogen. One virulence phenotype and three SSR genotypes occurred in all Russian regions. However, two phenotypes were specific to the European regions of Russia (North Caucasus and Middle Volga), while another two were found only in the Asian part of Russia (Ural and West Siberia). Significant differentiation between six populations of P. triticina from durum wheat in the Asian and European (mainly North Caucasus) regions was also shown with numerous metrics and approaches for data with and without clone correction. Relationships among the regional populations of P. triticina from durum wheat established with virulence phenotypes significantly associated with those for SSR genotypes and was similar to the relationships among the regional populations of the pathogen from common wheat.