The morphological and molecular characteristics of 41 populations of cereal cyst nematodes (Heterodera avenae group) collected in Adana, Osmaniye, Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Gaziantep, and Kilis provinces in the eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey were studied. | Turkish Journal of Agriculture and Forestry Turk J Agric For (2015) 39: 91-98 © TÜBİTAK doi: Research Article Morphological and molecular identification of cereal cyst nematodes from the eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey 1, 2 2 3 4 Mustafa İMREN *, Lieven WAEYENBERGE , Nicole VIAENE , İbrahim Halil ELEKCİOĞLU , Abdelfattah DABABAT 1 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Science, Abant İzzet Baysal University, Bolu, Turkey 2 Agricultural Research Centre Burg, Ghent, Belgium 3 Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Çukurova University, Adana, Turkey 4 International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Ankara, Turkey Received: Accepted: Published Online: Printed: Abstract: The morphological and molecular characteristics of 41 populations of cereal cyst nematodes (Heterodera avenae group) collected in Adana, Osmaniye, Kahramanmaraş, Hatay, Gaziantep, and Kilis provinces in the eastern Mediterranean region of Turkey were studied. The morphological characters and morphometric features of second-stage juveniles and cysts showed the presence of 3 Heterodera species: H. avenae, H. filipjevi, and H. latipons. All morphological values of these distinct populations were very similar to those previously described for these species. Genetic variation was observed among the identified cyst nematode species H. avenae, H. filipjevi, and H. latipons. Intraspecific polymorphism was observed within H. avenae and H. latipons but not in H. filipjevi populations. Molecular analysis using ITS regions of rDNA confirmed the identities of the 3 Heterodera species. According to our results, 75% of isolates were identified as H. avenae, 15% as H. latipons, and 10% as H. filipjevi. Key words: Cereal cyst nematode, morphology, sequences, phylogenetic 1. Introduction Cereal cyst nematodes (CCNs) cause serious economic damage in
