Project Number: 1275-22000-249-00
Project Type: Appropriated

Start Date: Mar 22, 2007
End Date: Mar 21, 2012

Objective:
1) Discover, refine, and implement improved microscopic, molecular, and software tools to modernize classification and improve predictive features for plant-parasitic and other agriculturally important nematodes; and 2) Discover new nematode species, new host associations, and new geographic occurrences among the many nematodes sent to the Nematology Laboratory for identification by various customers.

Approach:
1) Adapt and test recently discovered and potentially promising light and scanning electron microscopic methods to determine if visualization of diagnostically important critical features can be improved in resolution and consistency. Characterize new agriculturally important nematodes with expanded or novel morphological and molecular diagnostic characters for the development of improved diagnostic keys and phylogenetic trees. Identify and prioritize, using phylogenetic methods, potential molecular control targets based on physiologically important peptides within diverse nematodes having analogous phenotypes; and 2) Characterize unknown or important nematodes by morphology, molecular biology and host range; and continue to computerize and curate the USDA Nematode Collection.