Microbiology Society
The bacterium, which they named Candidatus Phytoplasma dypsidis was found to cause a fatal wilt disease. This new discovery was reported in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.
In 2016, several ornamental palms within a conservatory in the Cairns Botanic Gardens, Queensland, died mysteriously. A sample was taken from one of the diseased plants and investigated by Dr Richard Davis and colleagues from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment, and state and local government. They compared the characteristics and genome of the bacterium identified as the cause of the disease and found the bacterium was similar to other species of Candidatus Phytoplasma, many of which are responsible for disease epidemics in palms elsewhere but was different enough to be an independent species. “When the laboratory testing indicated it was something close to, but not the same as, devastating palm pathogens overseas, we were very surprised,” said Dr Davis.