''Aceria tosichella'', commonly known as the wheat curl mite (WCM), is a global

cereal A cereal is any Poaceae, grass cultivated for the edible components of its grain (botanically, a type of fruit called a caryopsis), composed of the endosperm, Cereal germ, germ, and bran. Cereal Grain, grain crops are grown in greater quantit ...

pest and a

vector Vector most often refers to: *Euclidean vector, a quantity with a magnitude and a direction *Vector (epidemiology), an agent that carries and transmits an infectious pathogen into another living organism Vector may also refer to: Mathematic ...

for spreading and

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission *** ...

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

es like

wheat streak mosaic virus ''Wheat streak mosaic virus'' (WSMV) is a plant pathogenic virus of the family ''Potyviridae'' that infects plants in the family Poaceae, especially wheat (''Triticum spp.''); it is globally distributed and vectored by the wheat curl mite, parti ...

(WSMV) and wheat mosaic virus (WMoV)

Distribution

The distribution of this

eriophyid Eriophyidae is a family of more than 200 genera of mites, which live as plant parasites, commonly causing galls or other damage to the plant tissues and hence known as gall mites. About 3,600 species have been described, but this is probably l ...

mite Mites are small arachnids (eight-legged arthropods). Mites span two large orders of arachnids, the Acariformes and the Parasitiformes, which were historically grouped together in the subclass Acari, but genetic analysis does not show clear evid ...

is observed mostly in the

wheat Wheat is a grass widely cultivated for its seed, a cereal grain that is a worldwide staple food. The many species of wheat together make up the genus ''Triticum'' ; the most widely grown is common wheat (''T. aestivum''). The archaeologi ...

producing areas of

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the southe ...

Biology

When it feeds on wheat, ''A. tosichella'' transmits the

. Infected plants show long yellow streaks, associated with some degree of

chlorosis In botany, chlorosis is a condition in which leaves produce insufficient chlorophyll. As chlorophyll is responsible for the green color of leaves, chlorotic leaves are pale, yellow, or yellow-white. The affected plant has little or no ability to ...

which may lead to death of the affected foliage. In Oklahoma, the disease usually appears in late April and early May when the weather warms up.

Transcriptome

Recently, researchers at USDA-ARS published the whole transcriptome of WCM, and showed that WSMV infection alters gene expression of its vector, wheat curl mite, to enhance mite development and population expansion, to increase transmission.

Distribution

Biology

Transcriptome

References

Further reading