2015 powdery mildew species review

Alist of all powdery mildew species I have found in 2015 is now available on the Whiteknights biodiversity blog.

Please take a look.

Interestingly, we can link these identifications to my powdery mildew baseline review, which aimed to establish which of the approximately 876 powdery mildew species found in the world had been recorded in the UK.

Here we can see that significant proportions of all the species of the genera Golovinomyces, Arthrocladiella, Neoerysiphe, Sawadaea, Podosphaera, and Blumeria are represented in the sampling generated via this years Powdery Mildew Survey (the citizen science scheme).

The genus Erysiphe, however seems to be hugely under-represented (with just 19 of the 85 known species identified). This may well be due to the minute differences in surface appearance and in the DNA of this tribe. The differences between species in this tribe are so small because of their relatively recent radiation into separate species. It can therefore be tricky to identify them to a species level, and, as such, I have only been able to identify these to the genus level (e.g. Erysiphe sp.).