Honors Program
[Honors-in-Discipline (Choose below)], Honors in Biology
Date of Award
5-2022
Thesis Professor(s)
Foster Levy
Thesis Professor Department
<--College of Arts and Sciences-->
Thesis Reader(s)
Gerardo Arceo-Gomez, Rebecca Pyles
Abstract
Fungal phytopathogens can cause disease epidemics in crops, weeds, and
populations of native plants. To investigate the impact of a foliar phytopathogen on the native herbaceous species, Veratrum viride, a demographic and disease assessment was carried out on two high elevation grassy bald populations on Roan Mountain, Tennessee. A leaf spot disease impacted all plants in both populations, causing widespread premature senescence of leaves and stems. Disease severity increased over the course of the growing season. Based on host disease symptoms and fungal conidia morphology, Pseudocercosporella sublineolata was shown to be the causal pathogen. A study of herbarium specimens showed no evidence that the disease was epidemic in the species and no evidence of an increase in disease prevalence over time. However, the disease was more common in the mid Atlantic and southern Appalachian regions, but rare in New England.
Publisher
East Tennessee State University
Document Type
Honors Thesis - Withheld
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Sutton, Leeah R. and Levy, Foster, "Epidemiology and impacts of a leaf spot disease in Veratrum viride (Melanthiaceae)" (2022). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 696. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/696
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.