Markers to differentiate species of anthracnose fungi identify <Emphasis Type="Italic">Colletotrichum fructicola</Emphasis> as the predominant virulent species in strawberry plants in Chiba Prefecture of Japan

Colletotrichum fungi belonging to the Colletotrichum gloeosporioides species complex include a number of economically important postharvest pathogens that often cause anthracnose. Until now, different species within this group could only be distinguished from one another reliably using multigenic phylogenetic analyses. Using a comparative genomics approach, we developed a marker that can differentiate Colletotrichum fructicola, Colletotrichum aenigma and Colletotrichum siamense within the C. gloeosporioides species complex based on PCR amplicon size differences. When we used this marker to classify 115 isolates collected over 20 years from strawberries in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, the isolates were predominantly C. fructicola. To our knowledge, this is the first report characterizing different species of Colletotrichum infecting strawberries in Japan and contributes to our understanding on the diversity of anthracnose pathogens in Japan.