Meloidodera   

  

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Rev 09/19/2023

Cystoid nematode Classification Hosts
Morphology and Anatomy Life Cycle

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 Economic Importance Damage
Distribution Management
Return to Heteroderidae Menu Feeding  References
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Classification:

Tylenchida
   Tylenchina
       Tylenchoidea
        Heteroderidae
         Meloidoderinae
          
 Meloidodera Chitwood, Hannon & Esser, 1956
Type species of the genus: Meloidodera floridensis Chitwood, Hannon & Esser, 1956

    Synonyms:

      None.
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Morphology and Anatomy:

 

Cystoid nematodes in which the body wall of the female does not harden into a cyst.

 

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Female: 

  • No cyst stage.  Body globose with short neck.  
  • Cuticle of medium thickness, whole body annulated with annulations overlying rows of punctations, with modified pattern at anal-vulval region.  D-layer absent.  Subcrystalline layer present.  
  • Vulva equatorial, at mid-body, not terminal; vulval lips not protruding.
  • Anus widely separated from vulva
  • Eggs either deposited or retained in body.  

      

 

Male: 

  • Body twisted, short (under 0.6 mm).  
  • Lateral field with four lines.
  • Spicules short (under 30 um), slightly curved, obliquely directed.
  • Gubernaculum small
  • No bursa
  • Tail short, hemispherical.  
  • No cloacal tubus.  
  • Phasmids punctiform, subterminal.  
  • No male metamorphosis within second-stage cuticle.

Second-stage juveniles:

  • Lateral field with four lines. 
  • Esophageal glands filling body cavity.  
  • Tail conical, of medium length, with half-length, hyaline, terminal part.  
  • Phasmids with or without lens-like structure. 
          
    [Ref: Luc, Maggenti & Fortuner, 1988; Chitwood et al., 1956; Hopper, 1960.]

Body size range for the species of this genus in the database - Click:
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Distribution:

Known primarily from North and Central America with some recent reports from Africa..  Meloidodera belli was described from California, M. charis reported from California, Nebraska and Texas, M. eurytyla from the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, . Meloidodera armeniiaca, M. sikhotealiniensis and M. tadshikistanica from Russia.  Meloidodera astonei, M. mexicana, M. ferrisi, M. tecoacensis and M. zacanensis were described from Mexico. (Inserra and Vovlas, 1986; Cid del Prado and Subbotin, 2023).

 

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Economic Importance:

 

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Feeding:

The nurse cell system is a uninucleate giant cell, usually in the pericycle.T he nucleus is irregularly hypertrophied nucleus and has a variable number of nucleoli. Hyperplasia occurs in cells adjacent to the giamt cell. The giant cell has direct contact with the vascular system. Plasmodesmata are concentrated in pit fields adjacent to the vascular parenchyma, facilitating access to nutrients (Palomares-Rius et al., 2017; Mundo-Ocampo and Baldwin, 1983).

 

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Hosts:

Conifers are a host of several Meloidodera species, although M. charis, for example, appears to have a particularly broad range including.

 
For an extensive host range list for this genus, click
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Life Cycle:

Triantaphyllou (1971) and Triantaphyllou and Hirschmann (1973) described M. floridebsis as a triploid, thelytokous parthenogenetic organism. Males are generally rare in natural populations of M. floridensis.infecting pine roots. 

Males are also rare in M. charis and are not common in the species of Meloidodera described from Mexico (Heald and Golden, 1969; Hopper, 1960; Cid del Prado-Vera, personal communication). The current opinion is that parthenogenesis is the common mode of reproduction in the genus although further studies are necessary.

For Ecophysiological Parameters for this genus, click 
 

Adult female body exposed on root surface.

 

 

 

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Damage:

Giant cell in root of Chile induced by Meloidodera mexicana

Photograph by Ignacio Cid del Prade Vera

 

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Management:

 

 

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References:

[Ref: Luc, Maggenti & Fortuner, Rev. Nematol. 11(2):159-176 (1988).]

Baldwin, J.G.1992. Evolution of cysta and noncyst-forming Heteroderinae. Annual Review of Phytopathology 30:271-290.

Chitwood, B.G., Hannon, C.I., Esser, R.P. 1956, A new nematode genus, Meloidodera, linking the genera Heterodera and Meloidogyne. Phytopathology 46:264-266.

Cid del Prado, I. 1991. Description of Meloidodera mexicana n. sp.(Nemata: Heteroderinae) with key to species. Revue de Nematologie 14:537-542.

Cid del Prado Vera, I. 1997. Description of Meloidodera zacanensis sp. n. (Heteroderidae), a parasite of tejocote trees in Mexico. International Journal of Nematology 7:165-169.

Cid del Prado Vera.I.. Rowe J.A. 2000. Cactodera evansi sp.n. and Meloidodera astonei sp.n .(Tylenchida: Heteroderidae) from Mexico. International Journal of Nematology.10:159-168.

Cid del Prado Vera, I. and Subbotin, S.A. 2023. Two new species of sedentary nematodes of the genus Meloidodera Chitwood, Hannon & Esser, 1956 (Tylenchida: Heteroderidae) from Mexico. Nematology 25:1-17.

Ghaderi, R. 2019. Systematics of cystoid nematodes. Riga, Latvia, Scholars Press.

Ghaderi, R. 2019. An outline on distribution and hosts of the cystoid nematodes of Ataloderinae Wouts, 1973 and Meloidoderinae Golden, 1971. Zootaxa 4664: 339-350 https://www.mapress.com/j/zt/

Heald, C.M., Golden, A.M. 1969, Meloidodera charis, a cystoid nematode infecting St. Augustinegrass. Plant Disease Reoporter 53:527.

Hopper, B.E. 1960.  Contributions to the knowledge of the genus Meloidodera (Nematoda: Tylenchida) with a description of M. charis n.sp. Canadian J. Zoology 38:939-947.

Inserra R.N. and  Vovlas, N. 1986. Cystoid nematodes and their economic importance. Nematology Circular 128; Florida Department of Agriculture,

Mundo-Ocampo, M., Baldwin, J. G. 1983. Host response to Meloidodera spp. (Heteroderidae). J. Nematol. 15:544-554.

Palomares-Rius, J.E., Escobar, C., Cabrera, J., Vovlas, A., Castillo, P. 2017. Anatomical altertions in plant tissues induced by plant-parasitic nematodes. Frontiers in Plant Science Sec. Plant Pathogen Interactions, 8:| https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2017.01987

Subbotin, S.A., Akanwari, J., Nguyen, C.N., Cid del Prado Vera, I., Chitambar, J.J., Inserra, R.N. & Chizhov, V.N. 2017. Molecular characterization and phylogenetic relationships of cystoid nematodes of the family Heteroderidae (Nematoda: Tylenchida). Nematology 19: 1065-1081.

 

 

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Copyright © 1999 by Howard Ferris.
Revised: September 19, 2023.