Devibursaphelenchus alienae n. sp. isolated from the bark of dead Quercus aliena in Japan

Abstract

Summary A new Devibursaphelenchus species isolated from the bark of a dead Quercus aliena, which had been infected and killed by Japanese oak wilt, was collected in Shiga, Japan. The new species is characterised by the relatively large body in males (661-768 μm) and females (893-1071 μm), conspicuous male bursal flap, male spicule with long condylus and wide blade, female post-vulval uterine sac (PUS) 39-54 μm or 1.6-2.3 times the vulval body diam. long, vestigial female anus, and female tail forming a strongly ventrally recurved elongate conoid with bluntly pointed or narrowly rounded terminus. The new species is typologically similar to D. lini, sharing a large body, conspicuous bursal flap, long PUS, and spicule shape, but can be distinguished from it by the absence of variation in the female tail shape, i.e., the tail of the new species is always long and strongly ventrally curved, while the tail shape varies more in D. lini. A previous molecular phylogenetic analysis suggested that the new species is fairly close to D. lini, but can be distinguished from it by the 1.0% (16 bp) difference within 1.6 kb of the 18S and 3.7% (26 bps) difference within 0.7 kb of the D2-D3 LSU ribosomal RNA genes. The newly found nematode is described and illustrated herein as D. alienae n. sp.