Combining air sampling and molecular methods to monitor airborne fungal plant pathogens
department or school: Forestry, Faculty of
data provider: DSpace
degree campus: UBCV
creator: Reich, Jonathan
issued: 2023-04-19T17:49:06Z
issued: 2023
related degree: Doctor of Philosophy - PhD
degree grantor: University of British Columbia
description: Many economically important agricultural plant pathogens are spread on air currents; as a result, monitoring the air for fungal spores could help predict epidemics and therefore prevent losses due to disease. This thesis describes the coupling of air sampling and molecular identification and quantification methods to both (i) characterize the air fungal microbiome, with an emphasis on regionally important plant pathogens, and (ii) describe and predict the occurrence of a specific pathogen and disease in southern Alberta: the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, causal agent of white mould in dry bean. For the first objective, Illumina amplicon sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1) region was performed on air samples collected across Alberta. This approach was able to simultaneously detect many airborne plant pathogens, in contrast to currently employed methods that only detect a single pathogen. Furthermore, there was some evidence that read abundance was reflective of biological abundance, since certain fungal genera were found in greater levels in samples collected in their host crops compared to nonhost crops. For the second objective, quantitative PCR (qPCR) was used to quantify ascospores of S. sclerotiorum from spore samplers placed in commercial dry bean fields in Alberta, Manitoba, and Ontario over four growing seasons. In-field weather stations collected a range of variable data, and disease surveys were performed to assess white mould levels. Disease incidence was most significantly associated with dry bean cultivar, with Pinto beans having, on average, the greatest disease levels compared to Great Northern, Yellow, Red, and Black. Due to the wide range of disease intensity observed, disease was not associated with ascospore levels or most environmental variables. Daily ascospore counts were not correlated strongly with most environmental variables but were strongly correlated with the numbers of ascospores released the previous day. This resear…
aggregated CHO: https://circle.library.ubc.ca/rest/handle/2429/84330
note: COMBINING AIR SAMPLING AND MOLECULAR METHODS TO MONITOR AIRBORNE FUNGAL PLANT PATHOGENS by Jonathan Reich B.A.Sc., Quest University Canada, 2013 M.Sc., University of Lethbridge, 2015 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Forestry) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2023 © Jonathan Reich, 2023 ii The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, the dissertation entitled: Combining air sampling and molecular methods to monitor airborne fungal plant pathogens submitted by Jonathan Reich in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Forestry Examining Committee: Richard Hamelin, Professor, Forest Conservation Sciences, UBC Co-supervisor Syama Chatterton, Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Lethbridge) Co-supervisor William Mohn, Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, UBC Supervisory Committee Member Jim Kronstad, Professor, Microbiology and Immunology, UBC University Examiner Guus Bakkeren, Research Scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (Summerland) University Examiner iii Abstract Many economically important agricultural plant pathogens are spread on air currents; as a result, monitoring the air for fungal spores could help predict epidemics and therefore prevent losses due to disease. This thesis describes the coupling of air sampling and molecular identification and quantification methods to both (i) characterize the air fungal microbiome, with an emphasis on regionally important plant pathogens, and (ii) describe and predict the occurrence of a specific pathogen and disease in southern Alberta: the fungus Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, causal agent of white mould in dry bean. For the first objective, Illumina amplicon sequencing of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS1) region was performed …
has type: Thesis/Dissertation
date issued: 2023-05
is shown at: 10.14288/1.0431167
language: eng
degree discipline: Forestry
provider: Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library
publisher: University of British Columbia
rights: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
rights URI: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
scholar level: Graduate
contributor: Hamelin, Richard C.
contributor: Chatterton, Syama
type: Text
type: Dataset
identifier URI: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/84330