In the framework of the monitoring campaign annually carried out in the Apulia region (southern Italy) to tackle the epidemic of X. fastidiosa subsp. pauca decimating olive trees, an outbreak of Xylella fastidiosa subsp. multiplex was discovered in 2024 with almond trees being the main host plant. Multilocus sequence typing analysis revealed that the isolates were associated with sequence type 26. Although subspecies multiplex is the most predominant in Europe, this was the first report of this ST, whose occurrence is also very limited in the American continent. Here we report the high-quality, complete annotated genomes of two ST26-strains recovered from infected cherry (BA_CH92_4) and almond (BA_AL92_2) trees, contributing to extend the genomic sequence dataset to infer phylogenetic relationships within the subspecies multiplex.
Landscape and environmental drivers of plant health decline during an active invasion of Xylella fastidiosa Wells et al. in Mediterranean agroecosystems
Invasive plant pathogens, such as Xylella fastidiosa (Xf), pose a major threat to global agricultural and natural ecosystems, yet their impacts are rarely assessed across agro–natural interfaces where plant diversity, landscape structure and environmental stress...