Good news on the advancements of NEM-EMERGE in the second meeting day
The second meeting day of the NEM-EMERGE first annual meeting was featured by the preliminary and first results partners have come up with during the first year of the project.
In the part of the project devoted to determining the occurrence and range expansion of root-knot nematodes, several samplings have already been carried out across Europe; analyses have been done to know what environmental features are important for the proliferation of the nematodes; several approaches for the identification of specific RKN species have been explored and developed; and even two interactive maps on RKN species richness have been published, which show the suitability of the target root-knot nematode (RKN) species, the potential RKN invasion risk or emergence risk in across different geographical areas. They are intended as decision-support tools for field surveys, sampling, or management prioritization.
Advancements in the work package devoted to nullifying the inactivation of host plant resistance under elevated soil temperatures, interesting results of several experiments were presented, which investigated the molecular basis of heat sensitivity of tomato plants to nematode resistance.
Similarly, the research carried out so far in the field of root-knot nematodes’ virulence was also presented, where the emergence of nematode populations overcoming resistance is being studied. Molecular markers specific to virulent RKN nematodes are being designed and validated, and some approaches arise to be promising. INRAE partners, for example, detected a big deletion in virulent variants’ genome which does not appear in avirulent isolates, and are exploring its potential as a marker.
Finally, guidelines have been given for the dissemination of the project results both to the interested stakeholders in the tomato and potato value chains and to the general public, in the belief that the results and achievements reached by scientific partners must be made known to non-specialised audience, in order to make the most of them.
