Pierce's Disease
Research Updates

piercesdisease.cdfa.ca.gov

What is Pierce's Disease?

Pierce's Disease is a bacterial infection, which is spread by bugs that feed on grapevines, particularly the "glassy winged sharpshooter." Grapevines that become infected with PD can quickly become sick and die.

glassy-winged sharpshooter

POPULATION GENETIC STRUCTURE OF THE GLASSY-WINGED SHARPSHOOTER DETERMINED BY ISSR-PCR DNA FINGERPRINTING


  • Author(s): de Le?n, Jesse; Jones, Walker; Morgan, David;
  • Abstract: In the present study compound Inter-Simple Sequence Repeat (ISSR) primers containing CA/GT-repeat motifs in their sequences were utilized to estimate the population genetic structure of Homalodisca coagulata (Say). Eighteen populations from throughout the U. S. and a population from Tahiti, French Polynesia were analyzed. The eighteen U. S. populations were arbitrarily assigned to three regions- southeastern (SE), southwestern (SW) (Texas), and western (W) (California) regions. A total of 62 and 91 neutral polymorphic markers were identified with p-15 and p-13, respectively. Exact tests for population differentiation indicated significant differences in marker frequencies among the 18 populations; in addition, significant differences were also observed within each region. Analyses of molecular variance (AMOVA) showed a significant partitioning of gene diversity among regions, 11% with p-15 and a lower value of 3% with p-13. The majority of (the variance, however, was distributed within populations, 83% and 88% with p-15 and p-13, respectively. Values of G)ST (8- 11%) and (7-10%) for among region variation were of comparable magnitudes to the AMOVA results. A dendrogram based on Reynolds coancestry distance performed with p-15 clustered the U. S. populations into two main groups, with the southeastern populations in one cluster and the southwestern and western populations in another cluster. Within the western region, dendrograms performed with p-13 and p-15 showed in both cases that the Edison and Bakersfield populations clustered as outliers. The present results estimate, for the first time, the population genetic structure of H. coagulata and suggest that a subset of insects in California may have their origins in the southwestern region (Texas); furthermore, these results are suggestive of more than one founding event in California.
  • Publication Date: Aug 2003
  • Journal: 2003 Pierce's Disease Research Symposium