Lihme, Malen*; Jensen, Annette Bruun; Rosendahl, Søren. Population genetic structure of Entomophthora muscae epidemics. In: International Meeting on "Population and Evolutionary Biology of Fungal Symbionts", Ascona, Switzerland, 2007. AB-30. Click here to download the presentation on pdf format.

Isolates of the entomopathogenic fungus Entomophthora muscae were obtained from houseflies sampled at five stables in Denmark during an epidemic in the autumn 2005. DNA fingerprints were generated from single conidia from forty-one E. muscae isolates using the PCR-based method of Inter-simple sequence repeats (ISSR). The fingerprint patterns showed about 50 fragments, of which fourteen (28%) were polymorphic. Analyses of the polymorphic loci revealed no significant differences between allele frequencies among the five populations using Weir & Cockerhams theta. Moreover index of association indicated that there were no signs of recombination in the E. muscae populations. From this study, it appears that the population genetic structure underlying E. muscae epidemics is clonal, consisting of several lineages with a high level of reciprocal migration.

Keywords: obligate pathogen, epidemic, single conidia, population genetic structure.

*Institution: University of Copenhagen

E-mail: mlihme@bi.ku.dk