PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Zerihun Yemataw
AU  - James S. Borrell
AU  - Manosh Kumar Biswas
AU  - Oliver White
AU  - Wendawek Mengesha
AU  - Sadik Muzemil
AU  - Jaypal N. Darbar
AU  - Ian Ondo
AU  - Pat J.S. Heslop Harrison
AU  - Guy Blomme
AU  - Paul Wilkin
TI  - The Distribution of Enset Pests and Pathogens and a Genomic Survey of Enset Xanthomonas Wilt
AID  - 10.1101/2020.06.18.144261
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.06.18.144261
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/18/2020.06.18.144261.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/06/18/2020.06.18.144261.full
AB  - Mapping the distribution of crop pests and pathogens is essential to safeguard food security and sustainable livelihoods. However, these data are unavailable for many neglected and underutilised crops, particularly in developing countries. In Ethiopia, the world’s largest historic recipient of food aid, the indigenous banana relative enset (Ensete ventricosum) is threatened by multiple pests and pathogens whilst providing the staple starch source for 20 million people. Foremost among these is Xanthomonas Wilt of enset (EXW), caused by Xanthomonas vasicola pv. musacearum (Xvm), a globally important disease of bananas (Musa sp.) that likely originated in enset. Here we collate 1069 farm surveys to map the distribution and relative prevalence of enset pests and pathogens across the entire enset growing region. We find that EXW is the most frequently encountered pathogen, and that farmers consistently ranked EXW as the most significant constraint on enset agriculture. Our surveys also showed that corm rot, and the pests root mealybug, mole rat and porcupine are all virtually ubiquitous. Finally, we apply genotyping-by-sequencing to the detection of Xvm and demonstrate that it is present even in asymptomatic domesticated and wild enset samples, suggesting that management of plants displaying symptoms alone may not be sufficient to reduce disease transmission. Holistic understanding of pests and pathogen distributions in enset may have significant benefits for both food security in Ethiopia, and preventing proliferation in related crops such as banana across central and east Africa.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.