Phylogeography of oat cyst nematode: Heterodera avenae

Abstract

Cereals, especially wheat, have been staple food in Serbia and on the Balkan Peninsula since the Neolithic age. Heterodera avenae is one of three main species of the Cereal Cyst Nematode complex. In our country, the oat cyst nematode dates back from the '60s of the XX century. The nematode has been molecularly characterized and so far, it is the only representative from the Balkans in the NCBI GenBank. This paper describes phylogenetic relationships between our population of H. avenae and other similar foreign populations. On the basis of phylogeography of host-parasite interaction, in the light of molecular data, the possible centers of origin of oats, i.e., oat domestication are also discussed.