Patrick Materatski

• PhD
• Researcher at Universidade de Évora

Plant pathogens including viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and insects, can cause huge economic losses on a wide range of crops and forest species worldwide [...]

Biological control agents (BCAs) are beneficial living organisms used in plant protection to control pathogens sustainably. Lactic acid bacteria (LAB) have gained attention in biopesticides due to their safety as recognized by the Food and Drug Administration. These bacteria possess antifungal properties, demonstrating inhibitory effects through nu...

Cactus pear var. miúda (Nopalea cochenillifera L. Salm-Dyck) is an important crop for the Northeast region of Brazil, composing one of the main sources of animal feed. By April 2021, cladode rot caused death of several cactus pear plants in a production area located in Itaporanga, Paraíba state, Brazil (7°21'55.35" S and 38°11'38.68" W). The infect...

Fusarium spp. are among the most common fungal species associated with diseases both on wild and cultivated plants, including sunflowers. They infect all plant tissues causing damage to roots, bundle vessels, stems, leaves, and seeds, often causing significant yield losses. Because contaminated seeds can spread diseases into new areas and transmit...

Downy mildew, powdery mildew, grey mould, black rot, and grapevine trunk diseases are among the most important fungal or oomycete diseases affecting grapevine, with a high economic impact in all growing areas. In recent decades, extensive efforts have been made to reduce the use of agrochemicals in viticulture, turning the management of these disea...

Viruses are responsible for many devastating human and animal diseases, such as Ebola, rabies, HIV, smallpox, influenza, dengue, and SARS-CoV-2 [...]

Simple Summary In tomato plants, Fusarium spp. have been increasingly associated with several wilt and rot diseases that are responsible for severe yield losses. In this context, a molecular-based tool was developed to increase the accuracy of detection and quantification of Fusarium spp. genomic DNA (gDNA) in tomato plants and to discriminate Fusa...

Tomato is one of the most important horticultural crops in the world and is severely affected by Fusarium diseases. To successfully manage these diseases, new insights on the expression of plant–pathogen interaction genes involved in immunity responses to Fusarium spp. infection are required. The aim of this study was to assess the level of infecti...

Sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is among the main oleaginous crops used in Brazil. During January, 2017, at CCA/UFPB laboratory and greenhouses (Areia/Brazil, 6°58'12″ S; 35°42'15″ W), we observed various sunflower seeds (cultivar Olisun 3, 2017-2018 crop) highly infested with Fusarium. Those seeds were from crops in the municipality of Alagoinha...

Grapevine trunk diseases (GTDs) are among the most important problems that affect the longevity and productivity of vineyards in all the major growing regions of the world. They are slow-progression diseases caused by several wood-inhabiting fungi with similar life cycles and epidemiology. The simultaneous presence of multiple trunk pathogens in a...

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp.) is widely cultivated throughout the North and Northeastern regions of Brazil. Despite its adaptability to local environmental conditions, some diseases may limit its cultivation. In September 2017, cowpea cultivar ‘BR-17 Gurguéia’ plants exhibiting root rot, vascular bundle darkening and wilt symptoms were collec...

Simple Summary Tomato is one of the most cultivated and economically important vegetable crops throughout the world. It is affected by a panoply of different pathogens that cause infectious diseases that reduce tomato yield and affect product quality, with the most common symptoms being wilts, leaf spots/blights, fruit spots, and rots. To survive,...

Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is one of the most economically important vegetables throughout the world. It is one of the best studied cultivated dicotyledonous plants, often used as a model system for plant research into classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, and molecular biology. Tomato plants are affected by different pathogens s...

Viruses may cause devastating diseases in several organisms; however, they are simple systems that can be manipulated to be beneficial and useful for many purposes in different areas. In medicine, viruses have been used for a long time in vaccines and are now being used as vectors to carry materials for the treatment of diseases, such as cancer, be...

Olea europaea Geminivirus (OEGV) was recently identified in olive in Italy through HTS. In this work, we used HTS to show the presence of an OEGV isolate in Portuguese olive trees and suggest the evolution direction of OEGV. The bipartite genome (DNA-A and DNA-B) of the OEGV-PT is similar to Old World begomoviruses in length, but it lacks a pre-coa...

Biological control strategies have become an important tool in the sustainable management of plant diseases. This paper aims to report the Fusarium species that affect fava beans (Phaseolus lunatus L.) grown in Paraíba, Brazil, and determines the potential of Trichoderma isolates to control these fungi. Two Trichoderma and ten Fusarium isolates fro...

Biological control strategies have become an important tool in the sustainable management of plant diseases. This paper aims to report the Fusarium species that affect fava beans (Phaseolus lunatus L.) grown in Paraíba, Brazil, and determines the potential of Trichoderma isolates to control these fungi. Two Trichoderma and ten Fusarium isolates fro...

Plant diseases result in severe losses to natural plant systems, and also cause problems for economics and production in agricultural systems [...]

Plant viruses cause devastating diseases in many agriculture systems, being a serious threat for the provision of adequate nourishment to a continuous growing population. At the present, there are no chemical products that directly target the viruses, and their control rely mainly on preventive sanitary measures to reduce viral infections that, alt...

Simple Summary Grapevine trunk diseases are the most widespread fungal diseases, affecting grapevines in all the major growing regions of the world, and their complete eradication is still not possible. Aiming to search alternatives to avoid the spread and high incidence of these diseases, the present work identified in vineyards within the Alentej...

In this study, the presence and variability of Colletotrichum spp. was evaluated by comparing fungal isolates obtained from olive trees under long-time phytosanitary treatments with trees without any phytosanitary treatments (treated and untreated, respectively). Olive fruits of trees of the highly susceptible ‘Galega vulgar’ cultivar growing in th...

Venturia oleaginea and Pseudocercospora cladosporioides are two of the most important olive fungal pathogens causing leaf spots: peacock spot, and cercosporiosis, respectively. In the present study, fungal communities associated with the presence of these pathogens were investigated. Overall, 300 symptomatic and asymptomatic trees from different cu...

Sensitive detection of viruses in olive orchards is actually of main importance since these pathogenic agents cannot be treated, their dissemination is quite easy, and they can have eventual negative effects on olive oil quality. The work presented here describes the development and application of a new SYBR® Green-based real-time quantitative PCR...

Fusarium spp. and Magnaporthiopsis maydis are soil-inhabiting fungi and respectively the causal agents of fusarium ear rot and late wilt, two important diseases that can affect maize, one of the most important cereal crops worldwide. Here, we present two sensitive real-time PCR TaqMan MGB (Minor Groove Binder) assays that detect and discriminate se...

Olive anthracnose is a very common and severe disease caused by diverse species of fungi belonging to Colletotrichum acutatum and Colletotrichum gloeosporioides complexes. To understand aspects of the Colletotrichum colonization and primary infection in olives, Colletotrichum spp. were isolated from the interior of 2-year stems, flower buds, and im...

Fungal endophytes are micro-organisms that colonize healthy plant tissues without causing disease symptoms. They are described as plant growth and disease resistance promoters and have shown antimicrobial activity. The spatial-temporal distribution of endophytic communities in olive cultivars has been poorly explored. This study aims to investigate...

This study was conducted to understand the high incidence of viruses previously reported in Tunisian olive groves. Forty three cultivars, native and introduced, under different cultivation regimes, were sampled in Tunisia, one of the countries with the highest levels of olive viruses. All olive-infecting viruses were tested. Total nucleic acids wer...

RNA silencing is an important defense mechanism in plants, yet several plant viruses encode proteins that suppress this mechanism. In this study, the genome of the Olive mild mosaic virus (OMMV) was screened for silencing suppressors. The full OMMV cDNA and 5 OMMV open reading frames (ORFs) were cloned into the Gateway binary vector pK7WG2, transfo...

RNA silencing is an important defense mechanism in plants, yet several plant viruses encode proteins that suppress it. Here the genome of Olive mild mosaic virus (OMMV) was screened for silencing suppressors using a green fluorescent based transient suppression assay. The full OMMV cDNA and 5 different OMMV open reading frames (ORFs) were cloned in...

Benthic nematodes are recognized as suitable organisms to provide valuable information on the potential ecological effects of natural and anthropogenic disturbances in aquatic ecosystems. The biomass and morphometric attributes of nematodes (body length, width, and length/width) collected in the Mira estuary (SW Portugal) were analysed before the c...

In the intertidal seagrass beds of Zostera noltii of Mira estuary (SW, Portugal) the harvesting practices are frequent. The traditional bivalve harvesting not only affects the target species as the remaining biological assemblages. The main aim of this study was to assess the disturbance caused by sediment digging in the recovery of the seagrass be...

Fungal endophytes present in different asymptomatic grapevine plants (Vitis vinifera L.) located in different vineyards within Alentejo, a highly important viticulture region in Portugal, were identified in this study. Sampled grapevine plants included the three most representative cultivars in the region, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon and Aragonez, gr...

In 2008, the stable seagrass beds of the Mira estuary (SW Portugal) disappeared completely; however, during 2009, they have begun to present early symptoms of natural recovery, characterised by a strongly heterogeneous distribution. This study was designed to investigate the spatial and temporal variability patterns of species composition, densitie...

This study examines the resource use and trophic position of nematodes and harpacticoid copepods at the genus/species level in an estuarine food web in Zostera noltii beds and in adjacent bare sediments using the natural abundance of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes. Microphytobenthos and/or epiphytes are among the main resources of most taxa, b...

This study examines the resource use and trophic position of nematodes and harpacti-coid copepods at the genus/species level in an estuarine food web in Zostera noltii beds and in adjacent bare sediments, using the natural abundance of stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes. Microphytobenthos is among the main resources of most taxa, but 5 seagrass-as...

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis was used to examine the resources and position of macrobenthos in an estuarine seagrass food web in two sampling moments, during summer and winter. The contribution of each food source to the carbon requirements of consumers was estimated by a mixing model. The used carbon sources were largely seagrass as...

Most laboratory tests may underestimate adverse effects in real scenarios of contamination because they imply the forced exposure of organisms to contaminants, thus overlooking the possibility of emigration. Avoidance from contaminants has been observed in several aquatic organisms, and avoidance-based tests have been recommended to be included in...