Population Genetic Structure and the Migration of Puccinia striiformis f. sp tritici Between the Gansu and Sichuan Basin Populations of China

Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici is the causal pathogen of interregional epidemics of wheat stripe rust in China via long-distance migration. Gansu Province serves as putative inoculum center providing over summering inoculum, while Sichuan Basin area serves as a region providing huge amounts of overwintering inoculum. Thus, the relationship between these two regions in population exchange and migration become important in prediction of interregional epidemics. In this study, we compared the population genetic structure and race composition between Gansu and Sichuan Basin populations to infer their migration relationships. A total of 526 isolates, spanning 3 years, were genotyped using eight pairs of amplified fragment length polymorphism markers, and a subset of 98 isolates were inoculated onto 19 Chinese differentials to perform the race analysis. Twenty-three common races and 26 shared genotypes supplied molecular evidence for migration between Gansu and Sichuan Basin populations. Bayesian assignment and principal component analysis revealed that the genetic group assignment of the Sichuan Basin populations (10SB and 11SB) changed in the spring to align with the fall Gansu populations in the prior seasons (09GS and LOGS), which indicated an asymmetric migration from Gansu Province to the Sichuan Basin area. The linkage disequilibrium and the parsimony tree length permutation test revealed a strong annual recombination signal in the Gansu populations and an inconsistent signal in the Sichuan Basin populations.