Nematology, 2005, Vol. 7(2), 243-247 Reproductive fitness of Meloidogyne artiellia populations on chickpea and durum wheat Víctor HERNÁNDEZ F ERNÁNDEZ 1 , Jorge MARTÍN BARBARROJA 1 , Rafael M. J IMÉNEZ DÍAZ 1,2 and Pablo CASTILLO 1,∗ 1 Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Apdo. 4084, 14080-Córdoba, Spain 2 Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Agrónomos y de Montes (ETSIAM), Apdo. 3048, 14080-Córdoba, Spain Received: 5 July 2004; revised: 20 January 2005 Accepted for publication: 24 January 2005 Summary – The influence of chickpea and durum wheat, as crops widely used in rotations in the Mediterranean Basin, on the reproductive fitness of five Meloidogyne artiellia populations from Italy, Spain and Syria, was investigated under controlled conditions. The reproductive fitness of the M. artiellia populations, determined as the number of eggs per mature egg mass, was significantly greater in durum wheat cv. Simeto than in chickpea cv. UC 27 for all five nematode populations. Similarly, both in chickpea and durum wheat the reproductive fitness differed among nematode populations, with populations of M. artiellia from Castel del Monte (southern Italy) and CL5 (northern Spain) producing the greatest number of eggs per egg mass. The fewest number of eggs per egg mass of M. artiellia occurred for populations from Alhama 6 (southern Spain) and Tel-Hadya (northern Syria). Keywords – eggs, egg masses, geographic origin, Mediterranean Basin, reproduction. Meloidogyne artiellia Franklin is an important root- knot nematode in the Mediterranean Basin, especially on leguminous crops such as chickpea (Cicer arietinum L.) (Greco, 1984) and cereals such as durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.), which are widely used in crop rotations in this area (Kyrou, 1969; Ritter, 1972; Tobar Jiménez, 1973; Di Vito & Zaccheo, 1987). Attacks by M. artiellia caused severe losses of chickpea seed yield in several countries of the Mediterranean Basin, where 10-12% of stunted chickpeas were infected with the nematode (Tobar Jiménez, 1973; Greco, 1984; Di Vito & Greco, 1988). Additionally, infections of chickpea by M. artiellia can break down valuable complete and partial resistance against highly virulent Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris race 5 when coinfections of a plant with the two pathogens occur (Castillo et al., 2003). The reproductive fitness of a pathogen while growing in a host plant (aggressiveness or parasitic fitness) together with virulence are major components of pathogenicity (Shaner et al., 1992) and, thus, are important for the as- sessment and understanding of disease reactions of plants to pathogens. Most research on Meloidogyne aggressive- ∗ Corresponding author, e-mail: ag1cascp@uco.es ness has been conducted by measuring the nematode re- production within the host, such as eggs produced per g of root (Van der Beek et al., 1997; Tzortzakakis et al., 1998). Similarly, reproduction variability is important for designing strategies for management of plant-parasitic ne- matodes, particularly for breeding and selecting resistant lines to root-knot nematodes. Therefore, this present study was undertaken to deter- mine the influence of the host plant (chickpea and durum wheat) and diversity of M. artiellia populations on the ne- matode reproductive fitness determined as the number of eggs per mature egg mass. Materials and methods NEMATODE INOCULUM Nematode populations used in this study were obtained from roots of chickpea and durum wheat collected in com- mercial fields of Italy, Spain and Syria (Table 1). Ten infected plants were arbitrarily chosen from each of the sampled fields and an egg mass from a single female © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2005 243 Also available online - www.brill.nl