Bursaphelenchus penai detected in Pinus taedae from the USA with obvious morphological differences

What is it about?

In Ningbo port, when inspecting Loblolly pine logs (Pinus taedae L.; aka southern yellow pine) from the USA, a Bursaphelenchus species with males have a long spike-like projection at the tail tip instead of a bursal flap was repeatly detected. It was identified as Bursaphelenchus penai Kanzaki, Giblin-Davis, Carrillo, Duncan & Gonzalez, 2014 based on morphological and molecular methods. The USA population is extremely small for individuals both detected from the wood logs and after cultured, all values like female and male body length, max body diam., tail length, spicule length and post-uterine sac length are much smaller.

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