Morphological and molecular characterisation of Punctodera mulveyi n. sp. (Nematoda: Punctoderidae) from a golf course green in Oregon, USA, with a key to species of Punctodera

Abstract

Summary Punctodera mulveyi n. sp. is described and illustrated from turf grass (Poa annua) in golf course greens with other fescues in Bandon, Coos County, Oregon, USA. Females and cysts are characterised by a saccate, globose to ovoid or pear-shaped body with a protruding neck. The cuticle has a lace-like pattern of ridges and heavy punctations on the subsurface. Cysts have distinctive vulval and anal circumfenestral patterns with heavy bullae scattered around the fenestral area, these being absent in young cysts. Second-stage juveniles (J2) vermiform, tapering to a long and cylindrical tail with a bluntly rounded to occasionally clavate tail terminus. Morphologically the new species resembles all known species of Punctodera using both light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy observations, but differs from the other species either by the J2 body and stylet length, shape of head, tail and tail terminus, female and male stylet or spicule length, and in having distinctive vulval and anal circumfenestral patterns in the cysts. Molecular analysis with sequence alignments and phylogenetic trees of ITS rDNA, nuclear heat shock protein 90 and mitochondrial COI sequences separated P. mulveyi n. sp. from P. matadorensis, P. punctata, P. stonei and P. chalcoensis, but 18S and 28S were relatively conserved with a few bp differences and there were insufficient Punctodera species sequences to give strong support to a new species designation. A morphologically most closely related species, P. stonei from Canada, further supported the status of P. mulveyi n. sp. An identification key to all five nominal species of Punctodera is given.

Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Pratylenchus dakotaensis n. sp. (Nematoda: Pratylenchidae), a New Root-Lesion Nematode Species on Soybean in North Dakota, USA

“…For the Low-Temperature Scanning Electron Microscopy (LT-SEM), nematodes were observed using the techniques described by Carta et al [ 21 ], Kantor et al [ 22 ], and Handoo et al [ 23 ].…”

Morphological and Molecular Characterization of Punctodera stonei Brzeski, 1998 (Nematoda: Heteroderidae) from Virginia, USA

“…The new sequences for the rRNA and mtDNA genes were aligned using ClustalX 1.83 (Chenna et al ., 2003) with their corresponding published gene sequences of nematodes from the genus Punctodera ( Sabo et al ., 2002 ; Subbotin et al ., 2006 ; Toumi, et al ., 2013 ; Skantar et al ., 2019 ; Kantor et al ., 2020 ). Sequence alignments were analyzed with Bayesian inference (BI) using MrBayes 3.1.2 ( Ronquist and Huelsenbeck, 2003 ).…”

“…Stone's cyst nematode, P. stonei , was first described from grass lawn collected in Skirniewice, Poland by Brzeski (1998) . P. stonei has been found in Europe, where it was reported from several countries ( Subbotin et al , 2010 ), and also in Canada ( Kantor et al ., 2020 ).…”

“…Punctodera stonei ( Brzeski, 1998 ) is a species belonging to the genus Punctodera ( Mulvey and Stone, 1976 ). The genus also includes other species, namely: P. punctata (Thorne, 1928; Mulvey and Stone, 1976 ), P. matadorensis ( Mulvey and Stone, 1976 ), P. chalcoensis ( Stone et al ., 1976 ), and two species P. mulveyi ( Kantor et al ., 2020 ) and P. achalensis ( Lax et al, 2021 ) described in the last 2 years. Until today, only P. punctata was reported from several states in the USA ( Subbotin et al ., 2010 ).…”

Morphological and molecular characterization of Paratylenchus beltsvillensis n. sp. (Tylenchida: Paratylenchidae) from the rhizosphere of pine tree (Pinus virginiana Mill) in Maryland, USA

“…Specimens were measured with an ocular micrometer on Leitz DMRB compound microscope. Nematodes were observed with the low-temperature scanning electron microscopy (LT-SEM) using the techniques described in Kantor et al (2020) and Carta et al (2020).…”