The genus Colletotrichum includes nine major clades with 252 species and 15 major phylogenetic lineages, also known as species complexes. Colletotrichum spp. are one of the top fungal plant pathogens causing anthracnose and pre- and postharvest fruit rots worldwide. Apple orchards are imperiled by devastating losses from apple bitter rot, ranging from 24 to 98%, which is a serious disease caused by several Colletotrichum species. Bitter rot is also a major postharvest rot disease, with C. fioriniae causing from 2 to 14% of unmarketable fruit in commercial apple storages. Dominant species causing apple bitter rot in the Mid-Atlantic United States are C. fioriniae from the Colletotrichum acutatum species complex and C. chrysophilum and C. noveboracense from the C. gloeosporioides species complex (CGSC). C. fioriniae is the dominant species causing apple bitter rot in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states. C. chrysophilum was first identified on banana and cashew but has been recently found as the second most dominant species causing apple bitter rot in the Mid-Atlantic. As the third most dominant pathogen, C. noveboracense MB 836581 was identified as a novel species in the CGSC, causing apple bitter rot in the Mid-Atlantic. C. nupharicola is a sister group to C. fructicola and C. noveboracense, also causing bitter rot on apple. We deliver the resources of 10 new genomes, including two isolates of C. fioriniae, three isolates of C. chrysophilum, three isolates of C. noveboracense, and two isolates of C. nupharicola collected from apple fruit, yellow waterlily, and Juglans nigra. [Formula: see text] Copyright © 2023 The Author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
Keywords: C. gloeosporioides species complex; Colletotrichum acutatum species complex; apple bitter rot; postharvest fruit rot; preharvest fruit rot.