Juan Emilio Palomares RiusIntramural contract in Institute for sustainable agriculture, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) SPAIN
Biography
My scientific career has been developed in the field of Plant Protection, mainly in plant-parasitic nematodes and how these organisms interact with the plants and other microorganisms in the soil in order to design effective Integrated Management in the agrosystem. Plant-parasitic nematodes could be a major limiting biological constrains for many crops. I have developed five main research lines during my scientific career: i) Study of the interaction plant-nematodes including the plant resistance characterization: the interaction of plant-parasitic nematodes (Meloidogyne artiellia) with the plant root system and the maintenance/breakdown the resistant to other pathogens (Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. ciceris) in chickpea lines using gene expression and proteomics was the main objective of my PhD. Later on, I have included more plant resistances in potato, grapevine, olive and Aloe vera; ii) Integrative diagnostics and molecular characterization of plant-parasitic nematode species (including description of new species and group phylogenies): plant-parasitic nematodes are very difficult to identify because of their similarity and intraspecific plasticity in morphological characters. This point is very important in order to preform good quarantine programs and get unequivocal identification results based on molecular techniques in the Integrated Management Programs. This point has been done with genera as important as Meloidogyne, Pratylenchus, Xiphinema or Longidorus among others; iii) Soil ecological relationships in order to understand the nematode biodiversity in olive. The nematode biodiversity will help to unravel the complex relationships between organisms in the soil helping us in the selection for the best agronomical practices for a sustainable crop; iv) Genetic population structure and molecular diversity of nematodes and plant-viruses vectored by nematodes: The knowledge of this diversity is important for determining the evolutionary mechanisms and possible ways of introduction; v) Genome sequencing and analysis: I have acquired a wide experience in this field during my postdoctoral stays with the publication of the genome of the Potato Cyst Nematode (PCN), Globodera pallida, and the comparison between several populations of the Pine Wilt Nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus. Nowadays I am exploring the sequencing of nematode endosymbionts in order to find novel ways to control them in field. I have got financial competitive support for five stays in centers of recognized international prestige and two postdoctoral stays in order to get experience in the above research lines. The first postdoctoral stay during two years was conducted in The James Hutton Institute in Dundee (U.K.) studying several ecological and genomic traits of PCNs. The second stay was in the Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute (Japan) studying the genomes of several Bursaphelenchus species and among populations of the Pine Wilt Nematode differing in their pathogenicity. Nowadays I am working in the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture-CSIC (Spain) in a postdoctoral Intramural contract.
Research Interest
Nematodes ,Disease control, environmental, Plant susceptibility, resistance, Etiology and diagnostic of plant diseases. Pathogenicity and plant-pathogen interaction. Plant-parasitic nematodes and plant-parasitic fungal interactions in plant. Plant-parasitic nematode control.