Montpellier Scientific Community



Plant Pathology (AVI-PATHO)

Director: Cindy Morris
Research area
The RU Plant pathology (AVI-PATHO) is centered on diseases of Mediterranean vegetable crops and viral diseases of flower crops. Five lines are pursued: identification of phytopathogens and description of their genetic and phenotypic diversity, the development of rapid, simple and reliable diagnostic methods, studies of the conditions that enhance the spread of epidemics, evaluation of the impact of biotic and abiotic factors on the effectiveness and durability of control methods and especially plant resistance to pathogens, and analysis of the variability potential of phytopathogens. The work as a whole is aimed at the development of effective, rational control methods that respect the environment and make it possible to produce high-quality fruits and vegetables.
Research highlights
Our RU has gained international recognition through its advances on the dissemination of pathogens - from microscopic to global scales e.g. elucidation of the specific number of viral particles transmitted by an insect vector (Moury et al., 2007), identification of the pioneer genotypes leading to Botrytis cinerea epidemics in greenhouses, survey of the spread of the emerging Watermelon mosaic virus variants (Desbiez et al., 2007) and demonstration of the world-wide dissemination of plant pathogenic and ice nucleation active bacteria with the water cycle (Morris et al., 2008; Christner et al., 2008). This work derives from our expertise on all aspects of pathogen variability-and in exploiting this variability to design experimental tools or control methods.

Another essential contribution concerns pathogen evolution, by mutation or recombination, associated with biotic and abiotic factors, among which is the host plant (species and genotypes). Also, an original approach is our attempt to model the evolutionary steps of pathogen variation both at cell and field scales. Recognized contributions also concern disease etiology and identification of pathogen traits contributing to epidemics (e.g. we identified the pathogens responsible for about 15 new viral and bacterial emerging diseases, meanwhile developing specific and sensitive tools for their detection).

For the past 20 years we have been contributing to the development of disease resistant lines in collaboration with the vegetable crop breeding RU at Avignon. Pathogen ecology and disease epidemiology studies have led to the development of two biological control agents (soon commercially available). Our present research aims at evaluating the durability of disease resistance and of biological protection agents.
Staff profile
Total permanent staff Total Scientists Scientists with "HDR"[1] Post-doc fellows PhD
42
13
4
2
4
[1] French university degree for confirmed thesis supervisor
Research teams
The unit is divided into three teams:
  • Bacteriology: Adaptation of plant pathogenic bacteria to multiple niches: consequences on disease emergence and implications for atmospheric processes.
  • Virology: Etiology of virus diseases in vegetable and ornamental crops, molecular epidemiology of virus diseases, research on and development of control methods including durable resistance to viruses.
  • Mycology: Air-borne fungus diseases of vegetable crops in greenhouses; epidemiology and biological control.
Platforms and other tools
  • Microscopy platform: light and electron (TEM and SEM) microscopy, cell imaging and data treatment.
  • Serology laboratory
  • Molecular biology platform: 500 m2 of laboratories with diversified and modern equipment.
  • 2000 m2 of greenhouses; 100 m2 of containment greenhouses, 10 plant growth chambers
  • Fully-equipped laboratories for isolation, preservation and characterization of bacteria, fungi and viruses
Most important international partnerships
Our RU has a wide range of collaborations in the Mediterranean basin, in North America and across Europe, many based on our research on plant pathogen biodiversity and dissemination, and on the development of durable crop protection strategies. We thus collaborate with research teams and extension services in Israel, Sudan, Iran and Tunisia for example, and with numerous US universities (Montana State Univ., Louisiana State Univ., Univ. of North Carolina and Virginia Tech). We have also been involved in several international projects involving European research institutes among which is the International Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Treviso, Italy.
Facts and figures
Publications in international ranking journals
2007: 22
2006: 13
2005: 8
Representative publications
Desbiez C., Costa C., Wipf-Scheibel C., Girard M., Lecoq H. 2007. Serological and molecular variability of watermelon mosaic virus (genus Potyvirus). Arch. Virol. 152: 775-781.

Christner B.C., Morris C.E., Foreman C.M., Cai, R., Sands D.C. 2008. Ubiquity of biological ice nucleators in snowfall. Science 319:1214.

Morris C.E., Sands D.C., Vinatzer B.A., Glaux C., Guilbaud C., Buffière A., Yan S., Dominguez H., Thompson B. 2008 The life history of the plant pathogen Pseudomonas syringae is linked to the water cycle. The ISME Journal, Advanced online publication: doi:10.1038/ismej.2007.113

Moury B., Fabre F., Senoussi R. 2007. Estimation of the number of virus particles transmitted by an insect vector. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 104: 17891-17896.

Moury B., Desbiez C., Jacquemond M., Lecoq H. 2007. Genetic diversity of plant virus populations: towards hypothesis testing in molecular epidemiology. Adv. Virus Res. 67: 49-87.

Moury B., Morel C., Johansen E., Guilbaud L., Souche S., Ayme V., Caranta C., Palloix A., Jacquemond M., 2004. Mutations in Potato virus T genome-linked protein determine virulence toward recessive resistances in Capsicum annuum and Lycopersicon hirsutum. MPMI 17:322-329.

Pierrugues O., Guilbaud L., Fernandez-Delmond I., Fabre F., Tepfer M., Jacquemond M. 2007. Biological properties and relative fitness of inter-subgroup cucumber mosaic virus RNA3 recombinants produced in vitro. J. Gen Virol 88:2852-2861.