Molecular and phenotypic characterization of Hemicriconemoides rosae (Rathour et al., 2003) from mustard rhizosphere in India

Abstract

Abstract Background Nematodes belonging to Genus Hemicriconemoides, commonly known as sheathoid nematodes, damaged many fruits, vegetables and cash crops, worldwide. A survey has been conducted in the agricultural fields of Bulandshahr district to find out the plant-parasitic nematodes load. Results A total of 85 soil samples were collected from mustard fields of Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh and processed for the presence of plant-parasitic nematodes and they were isolated by ‘Cobb sieving method’. Among all the collected soil samples, one soil sample found to be positive for the genus Hemicriconemoides and docketed as HCN. The earliest identification based on morphology revealed the species to be Hemicriconemoides rosae which was recovered from the mustard field for the first time. The morphology was found to be more consistent with rose population as compared to sugarcane population of the Hemicriconemoides rosae. Further, the Hemicriconemoides rosae was identified on the basis of molecular and phylogenetic analysis based on the concatenated matrix. In addition, correlation analysis of the Hemicriconemoides rosae based on morphometric parameters was done. The results revealed the importance of body length and its relation with other morphometric parameters, and they were found significant. Besides this, de Manian index a showed highest correlation with the body length in adult females. In all the studied ratios, a is very important for the evaluation of the females of a specific species of genus Hemicriconemoides. The data from the principal component analysis (PCA) revealed the high intraspecific and interspecific variations between the species of genus Hemicriconemoides. However, less intraspecific variations were present between the rose population and mustard population of H. rosae. Conclusions The study revealed the new host, i.e. mustard crops, for H. rosae showing dissimilarity in morphology with the sugarcane population.