Life history traits and trade-offs between two species of the ascochyta blight disease complex of pea

Plant disease complexes are a playground to investigate coinfections in natural or cultivated systems. Pathogens of such complexes may affect each other through direct and/or indirect interactions and lead to changes in virulence or aggressiveness, offspring production, and transmission. As coinfections by sympatric host-pathogens can strongly influence pathogen dynamics and their evolutionary trajectories, new insights into the mechanisms of their coexistence is thus of critical importance. In order to characterize differences in ecological niches liable to explain species coexistence on the same host, the inter- and intraspecific diversity of the life history traits in natural collections of the two main pathogens (Peyronellaea (formerly Didymella) pinodes Dp] and Phoma medicaginis var. pinodella Pmp]) of the ascochyta blight disease complex of pea was evaluated under controlled conditions. Dp strains developed 1.3 times faster and produced longer, mainly bicellular spores and in lower amounts (3.7 times less) than Pmp strains. Pmp strains were separated into two groups, one producing more pycnidiospores, mainly bicellular, with less resources, and the other with mainly unicellular ones. These three groups can be interpreted as three distinct life history strategies: pioneer colonizer (Dp), scavenger (large-spored Pmp), and intermediate (small-spored Pmp), allowing differentiation in access to and use of resources. While this experimental work provides new insight into coexistence of two species of the ascochyta blight disease complex of pea, it also raises the question of the benefit of having two distinct life history strategies for one species (Pmp).