Carolina S Rocha, Gloria P Castillo-Urquiza, Alison T M Lima, Fábio N Silva, Cesar A D Xavier, Braz T Hora-Júnior, José E A Beserra-Júnior, Antonio W O Malta, Darren P Martin, Arvind Varsani, Poliane Alfenas-Zerbini, Eduardo S G Mizubuti, F Murilo Zerbini
The incidence of begomovirus infections in crop plants sharply increased in Brazil during the 1990s following the introduction of the invasive B biotype of the whitefly vector, Bemisia tabaci. It is believed that this biotype transmitted begomoviruses from noncultivated plants to crop species with greater efficiency than indigenous B. tabaci biotypes. Either through rapid host adaptation or selection pressure in genetically diverse populations of noncultivated hosts, over the past 20 years various previously unknown begomovirus species have became progressively more prevalent in cultivated species such as tomato...
May 2013: Journal of Virology