Department of Plant Protection, Faculty of Agriculture, Bogor Agricultural University, Darmaga campus, Jalan Kamper, Bogor 16680, Indonesia.
Abstracts of the papers presented at the International Conference of Indian Virological Society on “Emerging and Re-emerging viral Diseases of the Tropics and Subtropics” at Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, India, December 11–14, 2007.
Whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses (Begomoviruses) has been reported to cause severe crop damage and becoming a major threat in Java, especially in tomato and chillipepper, since early 2000. Virus - vector relationship may explain the widespread of the disease in Indonesia. Although the disease is transmitted efficiently only by Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae), different whitefly species is often found simultaneously on crops. To study genetic diversity of whitefly population, whiteflies from different crops was differentiated using mitochondrial COI gene analysis. Based on this study, B. tabaci populations can be differentiated into two big groups, i.e. biotype B and biotype non-B. Biotype B was found only in West Java, while biotype non B were also found from other area in Java. Furthermore, transmission efficiency of different strains of whitefly-transmitted tomato geminiviruses by different population of B. tabaci was evaluated. There is no specific interaction between each B. tabaci biotype and each Begomoviruses strain in term of transmission efficiency. However, we observed differences in transmission efficiency for each B. tabaci biotype and Begomoviruses strain combination. Begomoviruses from Central Java was transmitted most efficiently by B. tabaci biotype non-B from East Java, whereas Begomoviruses from West Java was transmitted more efficiently by B. tabaci biotypes non-B than biotype B.
