Recent Advances in Population Genomics of Plant-Parasitic Nematodes

Abstract

Plant-parasitic nematodes are a costly burden of crop production. Ubiquitous in nature, phytoparasitic nematodes are associated with nearly every important agricultural crop and represent a significant constraint on global food security. Population genetics is a key discipline in plant nematology to understand aspects of the life strategies of these parasites, in particular their modes of reproduction, geographic origins, evolutionary histories and dispersion abilities. Advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies have enabled a recent but active effort in genomic analyses of plant-parasitic nematodes. Such genomic approaches applied to multiple populations are providing new insights into the molecular and evolutionary processes that underpin the establishment of these nematodes and into a better understanding of the genetic and mechanistic basis of their pathogenicity and adaptation to their host plants. In this review, we attempt to update information on genome resources and genotyping techniques useful for nematologists who are thinking about initiating population genomic or genome sequencing projects. This review also intends to foster the development of population genomics in plant-parasitic nematodes through the highlighting of recent publications that illustrate the potential for this approach to identify novel molecular markers or genes of interest and improve our knowledge of the genome variability, the pathogenicity and the evolutionary potential of plant-parasitic nematodes.

Do biological control agents adapt to local pest genotypes? A multiyear test across geographic scales

“…Our largest scale tests used fields within the same county and in some cases within the same farm (Figure 1a, Figure S1b). Though population genetic data for Meloidogyne species are sparse (Koutsovoulos et al, 2018;Montarry et al, 2021), studies of the ecologically similar cyst nematodes…”

Advancing Strongyloides omics data: bridging the gap with Caenorhabditis elegans

“…Phylogenetics studies have long been carried out on parasitic nematodes using marker genes, and more recently this has extended to phylogenomics and population genomics studies from whole genome sequencing data [57]. These studies span nematodes that infect plants [57], wild animals [58] and humans [59]; they are more diverse than those conducted in Strongyloides , addressing a wide range of topics including identifying a genetic locus associated with anthelminthic drug resistance in multiple distinct populations of H. contortus [60], and understanding zoonotic reservoirs and distribution expansion of Trichuris trichiura [61].…”

Field treatment of three wheat varieties with Trichoderma harzianum bioagent to control Anguina tritici

“…This variation may be related to the selective pressure of many constraints favoring certain pathotypes over others in wheat growing area including varieties grown, alternative hosts available, and limited movements of nematode-infected plant materials, nationwide [22,23].…”