Effect of sexual recombination on pathotype frequencies in barley powdery mildew populations of artificially inoculated field plots

Changes in pathotype frequencies due to sexual reproduction during summer were assessed in barley plots inoculated at the start of the growing season with powdery mildew isolates of the pathotype GL1 (Va22Vh) which belonged to a clonal lineage frequent in Northern France in 1992-1996 and was absent or rare in the local population at the time of the study. The capacity for recombination among isolates belonging to the pathotype GL1 was confirmed by performing crosses in the greenhouse. The field experiment was repeated over two years, with two field plots inoculated with either a single isolate (one mating type) or four isolates (two mating types). Following artificial inoculation, the frequency of GL1 increased to between 40% and 80% of the total conidia population at the end of the asexual epidemics before summer. When only one isolate (one mating type) of the pathotype GL1 was present, the frequency of the GL1 pathotype decreased to 4-5% of the ascospore population, following sexual recombination between the inoculated isolate and the local natural population. When isolates of both mating types of GL1 were inoculated, however, the GL1 pathotype remained dominant (28%) in the ascospore population. A pathotype dominant at the end of the summer might possibly have over-summered through asexual reproduction, or alternatively it may originate from sexual reproduction. The observed GL1 frequencies and numbers of virulences per isolate (complexity) observed on the field plots were compared to those calculated with a model assuming random or non-random mating.