Scientific Investigator
Plant-pathogen interactions
Instituto de Hortofruticultura Subtropical y Mediterranea La Mayora
Spain
Epidemiology, diversity and phylogeny of plant viruses, with emphasis on whitefly-transmitted viruses that cause emerging diseases: begomoviruses and criniviruses. Genetic diversity of the vector insects. - We have obtained infectious clones of ToCV. - We have described new begomovirus species from Brazil, Peru and Venezuela. - It has been described the presence of alphasatelites of unusual size associated to begomoviruses infecting tomato in Sudan. - A new taxonomy has been proposed for the family Geminiviridae, establishing three new genera: Becurtovirus, Eragrovirus and Turncurtovirus, and the taxonomy of genera Begomovirus, Curtovirus and Mastrevirus has been updated. - The presence of the bipartite begomovirus Tomato leaf curl New Delhi virus and the polerovirus Pepper vein yellows virus has been reported in Spain. - It has been shown that Arabidopsis thaliana is an experimental host of Tomato yellow leaf curl virus, and tobacco is a natural host of Tomato chlorosis virus. - The genetic diversity of the whitefly Bemisia tabaci present in Brazil has been described. - An invited review on whitefly-transmittted RNA viruses that affect intensive vegetable production has been published in Annals of Applied Biology.
Plant Viruses, Genetic Vectors