Priscila Chaverri

Priscila Chaverri
Bowie State University · Department of Natural Science

PhD

About

139
Publications
145,131
Reads
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10,008
Citations
Additional affiliations
May 2008 - May 2019
University of Maryland, College Park
Position
  • Professor (Associate)
July 2005 - May 2008
Howard University
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
August 2013 - present
University of Costa Rica
Position
  • Profesora
Education
July 1998 - August 2003
Pennsylvania State University
Field of study
  • Plant Pathology
February 1987 - August 1993

Publications

Publications (139)
Article
Full-text available
Host jumps by microbial symbionts are often associated with bursts of species diversification driven by the exploitation of new adaptive zones. The objective of this study was to infer the evolution of habitat preference (decaying plants, soil, living fungi, and living plants), and nutrition mode (saprotrophy and mycoparasitism) in the fungal genus...
Article
Full-text available
The estimation of species diversity in fungal endophyte communities is based either on species counts or on the assignment of operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Consequently, the application of different species recognition criteria affects not only diversity estimates but also the ecological hypotheses that arise from those observations. The main...
Article
Full-text available
Trichoderma harzianum is a ubiquitous species in the environment and is effective in the biological control of plant-pathogenic fungi. T. harzianum has not been linked unequivocally to its sexual state nor has its phylogeny been studied in detail. It has been suggested that T. harzianum is a species complex based on the phenotypic and genotypic var...
Article
Full-text available
Trichoderma spp. are important biological control agents and plant growth promoters. However, only a limited number of species are used in biological control even though the genus contains more than 400 species, with most of them being mycotrophic. In this study, 97 Trichoderma isolates preserved at the EMBRAPA collection (an important source for b...
Preprint
Full-text available
Background Endohyphal microbiomes, comprising bacteria and viruses, significantly influence fungal phenotypes, host fitness, and ecological interactions. Endohyphal bacterial symbionts are known to affect fungal pathogenicity, secondary metabolite production, and adaptability, yet many aspects of their diversity and interactions remain uncertain. I...
Preprint
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Sloths, with their ruminant-like digestive systems, possess the slowest digestion among mammals due to their low metabolic rate, minimal food intake, and extremely low-energy diet. However, no comprehensive studies have characterized the sloth’s gut microbiota, including fungi, and their role in digestion. This study hypothesized that effective pla...
Article
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The global diversity of fungi has been estimated between 2 to 11 million species, of which only about 155 000 have been named. Most fungi are invisible to the unaided eye, but they represent a major component of biodiversity on our planet, and play essential ecological roles, supporting life as we know it. Although approximately 20 000 fungal gener...
Article
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Fungal endophytes are pivotal components of a plant's microbiome, profoundly impacting its health and fitness. Yet, myriad questions remain concerning the intricate interactions between these microorganisms and their hosts, particularly in the context of agriculturally important plants such as Coffea arabica. To bridge this knowledge gap and provid...
Preprint
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Fungal endophytes play a pivotal role in tropical forest dynamics, influencing plant fitness through growth stimulation, disease suppression, stress tolerance, and nutrient mobilization. This study investigates the effects of region, leaf developmental stage, and tissue type on endophyte communities in tropical Rubiaceae. Our hypotheses, centered o...
Article
Full-text available
microbeMASST, a taxonomically informed mass spectrometry (MS) search tool, tackles limited microbial metabolite annotation in untargeted metabolomics experiments. Leveraging a curated database of >60,000 microbial monocultures, users can search known and unknown MS/MS spectra and link them to their respective microbial producers via MS/MS fragmenta...
Article
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Trichoderma is a cosmopolitan genus with diverse lifestyles and nutritional modes, including mycotrophy, saprophytism, and endophytism. Previous research has reported greater metabolic gene repertoires in endophytic fungal species compared to closely-related non-endophytes. However, the extent of this ecological trend and its underlying mechanisms...
Article
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The Global Consortium for the Classification of Fungi and fungus-like taxa is an international initiative of more than 550 mycologists to develop an electronic structure for the classification of these organisms. The members of the Consortium originate from 55 countries/regions worldwide, from a wide range of disciplines, and include senior, mid-ca...
Article
Full-text available
Fungi exhibit a wide range of ecological guilds, but those that live within the inner tissues of plants (also known as endophytes) are particularly relevant due to the benefits they sometimes provide to their hosts, such as herbivory deterrence, disease protection, and growth promotion. Recently, endophytes have gained interest as potential biocont...
Preprint
Full-text available
MicrobeMASST, a taxonomically-informed mass spectrometry (MS) search tool, tackles limited microbial metabolite annotation in untargeted metabolomics experiments. Leveraging a curated database of >60,000 microbial monocultures, users can search known and unknown MS/MS spectra and link them to their respective microbial producers via MS/MS fragmenta...
Preprint
Full-text available
MicrobeMASST, a taxonomically-informed mass spectrometry (MS) search tool, tackles limited microbial metabolite annotation in untargeted metabolomics experiments. Leveraging a curated database of >60,000 microbial monocultures, users can search known and unknown MS/MS spectra and link them to their respective microbial producers via MS/MS fragmenta...
Article
Full-text available
Aims: The American leaf spot, caused by Mycena citricolor, is an important disease of coffee (Coffea arabica), mostly in Central America. Currently, there are limited pathogen control alternatives that are environmentally friendly and economically accessible. The use of fungi isolated from the plant endomycobiota in their native habitats is on the...
Preprint
Full-text available
Trichoderma is a cosmopolitan genus with diverse lifestyles and nutritional modes, including mycotrophy, saprophytism, and endophytism. Previous research has reported greater metabolic gene repertoires in endophytic fungal species compared to closely-related non-endophytes. However, the extent of this ecological trend and its underlying mechanisms...
Article
Full-text available
Global agricultural trade has accelerated the emergence and re-emergence of new plant pathogens. In the United States, the fungal pathogen Colletotrichum liriopes is still considered a foreign quarantine pathogen that affects ornamental plants, i.e., Liriope spp. Even though this species has been reported in East Asia on various asparagaceous hosts...
Article
Sloths have dense fur on which insects, algae, bacteria and fungi coexist. Previous studies using cultivation-dependent methods and 18S rRNA sequencing revealed that the fungal communities in their furs comprise members of the phyla Ascomycota and Basidiomycota. In this note, we increase the resolution and knowledge of the mycobiome inhabiting the...
Article
Full-text available
We studied the physicochemical characteristics and mycobiota associated to five key historic documents from Costa Rica, including the Independence Act of Costa Rica from 1821. We used nondestructive techniques (i.e., ATR-FTIR and XRF) to determine paper and ink composition. Results show that some documents are composed of cotton-based paper, wherea...
Preprint
Both marine and terrestrial organisms produce light enzymatically in a process called bioluminescence. Though the ecological role of light production is known for some species, such as fireflies and bacteria, the ecological role in mushroom-producing fungi remains relatively unexplored, particularly in Central America. Here, we discovered a biolumi...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Products of plant secondary metabolism, such as phenolic compounds, flavonoids, alkaloids, and hormones, play an important role in plant growth, development, stress resistance. The plant family Rubiaceae is extremely diverse and abundant in Central America and contains several economically important genera, e.g. Coffea and other medici...
Article
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Pathogenicity of fungi associated with strawberry plants (Fragaria ananassa) and ultrastructural description of the pathosystem. Introduction. Strawberries are important in Costa Rica due to their high demand as fresh fruit and for making jams. In 2015, reports of plant death began, presumably associated with soil-dwelling fungal complexes. The sym...
Article
Hypocrella, Moelleriella and related species in the Hypocreales (Ascomycota, Sordariomycetes) cause epizootics of whiteflies and scale insects in nature. However, studies on their host specificity, virulence, infection cycles, optimal development under laboratory conditions, and compatibility with other control methods, are unexplored for most spec...
Article
Full-text available
Seven Fusarium species complexes are treated, namely F. aywerte species complex (FASC) (two species), F. buharicum species complex (FBSC) (five species), F. burgessii species complex (FBURSC) (three species), F. camptoceras species complex (FCAMSC) (three species), F. chlamydosporum species complex (FCSC) (eight species), F. citricola species compl...
Preprint
Full-text available
Through nondestructive techniques, we studied the physicochemical characteristics and mycobiota of five key historic documents from Costa Rica, including the Independence Act of Costa Rica from 1821. We determined that for documents dated between 1500 and 1900 (i.e., the Cloudy Days Act, the Independence Act, and two documents from the Guatemalan S...
Article
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The rubber tree, Hevea brasiliensis, is a neotropical Amazonian species. Despite its high economic value and fungi associated with native individuals, in its original area in Brazil, it has been scarcely investigated and only using culture-dependent methods. Herein, we integrated in silico approaches with novel field/experimental approaches and a c...
Article
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Background Bats are important long-distance dispersers of many tropical plants, yet, by consuming fruits, they may disperse not only the plant’s seeds, but also the mycobiota within those fruits. We characterized the culture-dependent and independent fungal communities in fruits of Ficus colubrinae and feces of Ectophylla alba to determine if passa...
Article
Full-text available
The transition from conventional to organic agriculture is often challenged by the adaptation of biological control agents to environments heavily exposed to agrochemical pollutants. We studied Trichoderma species isolated from living leaf tissues of wild Rubiacaeae (coffee family) plants to determine their fungicide tolerance and potential for bio...
Article
Living organisms can induce deterioration of cultural heritage. Conservation strategies aimed at avoiding damage and aiding restoration, require a comprehensive knowledge of structure, chemical composition, and identity of microorganisms that colonize artworks. The National Theatre of Costa Rica (NTCR), a building with historic architecture, houses...
Article
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Successional dynamics of plants and animals during tropical forest regeneration have been thoroughly studied, while fungal compositional dynamics during tropical forest succession remain unknown, despite the crucial roles of fungi in ecological processes. We combined tree data and soil fungal DNA metabarcoding data to compare richness and community...
Article
A study was performed on a collection of 84 isolates from decaying plant tissues and soils in Argentina previously identified as Trichoderma harzianum. Based on multiple phenotypic characters and multilocus phylogenetic analyses, 10 species were distinguished, three of which are described as new species: T. austroindianum, T. hortense, and T. syagr...
Article
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Recent publications have argued that there are potentially serious consequences for researchers in recognising distinct genera in the terminal fusarioid clade of the family Nectriaceae. Thus, an alternate hypothesis, namely a very broad concept of the genus Fusarium was proposed. In doing so, however, a significant body of data that supports distin...
Article
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The objective of this research was to determine the level of susceptibility of nine genotypes of Gmelina arborea Roxb to the appearance of the disease called here “Stem rot.” A diagrammatic scale was developed to measure the severity of the attack of the pathogen on vegetatively propagated seedlings. For this purpose, four thousand plants were chec...
Article
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Las pudriciones radicales limitan el rendimiento del frijol ( Phaseolus vulgaris ), y aunque en Costa Rica son frecuentes, la identidad de los hongos asociados a ellas es incierta. El objetivo de esta investigación fue identificar molecularmente los hongos asociados a las pudriciones radicales y marchitez del frijol en las dos principales zonas pro...
Article
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Countless uncertainties remain regarding the effects of global warming on biodiversity, including the ability of organisms to adapt and how that will affect obligate symbiotic relationships. The present study aimed to determine the consequences of temperature increase in the adaptation of plant endosymbionts (endophytes) that grow better at low tem...
Technical Report
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The Tambopata Nature Reserve is located in the Department of Madre de Dios in southeastern Peru at the foothills of the Andes at an elevation of ~250 m. This lowland Amazon rainforest has a mean annual temperature of 25°C with an average annual precipitation of ~2200-2400 mm. The region is renowned for high levels of biodiversity. The global demand...
Poster
Full-text available
Fungi associated with wilt of the common bean in Costa Rica HONGOS ASOCIADOS A LA MARCHITEZ DEL FRIJOL COMÚN EN COSTA RICA ANTECEDENTES. El frijol (Phaseolus vulgaris) es fundamental para la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, es una de las activi-dades productivas que permite la obtención de ingresos anuales para pequeños productores en Centroamé...
Poster
Fungi associated with wilt of the common bean in Costa Rica HONGOS ASOCIADOS A LA MARCHITEZ DEL FRIJOL COMÚN EN COSTA RICA ANTECEDENTES. El frijol (Phaseolus vulgaris) es fundamental para la seguridad alimentaria y nutricional, es una de las activi-dades productivas que permite la obtención de ingresos anuales para pequeños productores en Centroamé...
Article
The genus Gliocephalotrichum (Nectriaceae), originally described as a soil-borne fungus, has been associated with postharvest diseases, especially of tropical fruits. Taxonomic studies using both morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses have contributed to recognition of novel species in several countries. However, in Brazil, only three is...
Preprint
Full-text available
Fungus-growing ''attine'' ants forage diverse substrates to grow fungi for food. In addition to the mutualistic fungal partner, the colonies of these insects harbor a rich microbiome composed of bacteria , filamentous fungi and yeasts. Previous work reported some Trichoderma species in the fungus gardens of leafcutter ants. However, no studies syst...
Article
In 2008, a canker disease caused by the fungus Corinectria constricta was detected in southern Chile. The causal agent was previously identified as Neonectria fuckeliana (now Corinectria fuckeliana), which has been associated with stem cankers in Pinus radiata plantations in New Zealand since the 1990s. Many basic aspects of the life cycle of C. co...
Article
Full-text available
Los estudios ecológicos de las comunidades fúngicas se han visto favorecidos gracias a la aparición y mejora de técnicas independientes de cultivo que utilizan la región ITS como marcador molecular. Esto ha permitido una identificación más precisa en comparación con los métodos tradicionales dependientes de la cultura. Las técnicas de secuenciació...
Article
Full-text available
The nuclear ribosomal DNA internal transcribed spacer (ITS) is accepted as the genetic marker or barcode of choice for the identification of fungal samples. Here, we present a protocol to analyze fungal ITS data, from quality preprocessing of raw sequences to identification of operational taxonomic units (OTUs), taxonomic classification, and assign...
Preprint
We explored the hypothesis of an indirect mutualistic relationship (i.e., when the association between two species is modified by a third one) within a plant-animal seed dispersal network. Bats are important long-distance dispersers of many tropical plants, yet, by consuming fruits they may disperse not only the plant's seeds, but also the endosymb...
Article
Full-text available
Many aspects of the dynamics of tropical fungal endophyte communities are poorly known, including the influence of host taxonomy, host life stage, host defence, and host geographical distance on community assembly and composition. Recent fungal endophyte research has focused on Hevea brasiliensis due to its global importance as the main source of n...
Article
Full-text available
Background and Aims: The production of edible fungi is affected by bacterial, fungal and viral diseases, which very often cause large losses. In the production of mushrooms of the genus Pleurotus, the fungi of Trichoderma spp. represent a serious problem of contamination and although there are some chemical compounds that control the infection, the...
Article
The Corynespora leaf fall disease of rubber trees, caused by the necrotrophic fungus Corynespora cassiicola, is responsible for important yield losses in Asian and African plantations, whereas its impact is negligible in South America. The objective of this study was to identify potential antagonists of C. cassiicola among fungal endophytes (i.e.,...
Article
Full-text available
Background Hevea brasiliensis is an important commercial crop due to the high quality of the latex it produces; however, little is known about viral infections in this plant. The only virus described to infect H. brasiliensis until now is a Carlavirus, which was described more than 30 years ago. Virus-derived small interfering RNA (vsiRNAs) are the...
Poster
Full-text available
The Reserva Particular do Patrimônio do Natural Cristalino protects an evergreen forest in the southern Amazon Basin between the upper reaches of the Tapajós and Xingu rivers. The habitats include tall upland Amazonian terra firme forest, stands of native bamboo, seasonally-flooded varzea forest and cerrado vegetation. Photos by S. Sourell, except...
Article
Full-text available
The archive of the Universidad de Costa Rica maintains a nineteenth-century French collection of drawings and lithographs in which the biodeterioration by fungi is rampant. Because of nutritional conditions in which these fungi grew, we suspected that they possessed an ability to degrade cellulose. In this work our goal was to isolate and identify...
Article
Corinectria gen. nov. is described for C. constricta sp. nov., C. fuckeliana comb. nov. and C. tsugae comb. nov. The new genus is distinguished from Neonectria sensu stricto on the basis of morphological differences and biology. The species in Corinectria are only known from conifers from the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The phylogenetic anal...
Article
Full-text available
The ITS (nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer) RefSeq database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is dedicated to the clear association between name, specimen and sequence data. This database is focused on sequences obtained from type material stored in public collections. While the initial ITS sequence curation ef...
Article
Full-text available
With the change to one scientific name for fungal species, numerous papers have been published with recommendations for use or protection of competing generic names in major groups of ascomycetes. Although genera in each group of fungi were carefully considered, some competing generic names were overlooked. This paper makes recommendations for addi...
Article
Full-text available
Fungus-growing "attine" ants forage diverse substrates to grow fungi for food. In addition to the mutualistic fungal partner, the colonies of these insects harbor a rich microbiome composed of bacteria, filamentous fungi and yeasts. Previous work reported some Trichoderma species in the fungus gardens of leafcutter ants. However, no studies systema...
Article
The genus Thelonectria and closely related species with cylindrocarpon-like asexual states are a group of perithecial ascomycetes in the family Nectriaceae that occur as saprobes and in few cases as pathogens of hardwood trees, shrubs or other plants. Although a key component of forest ecosystems around the world, species relationships and distribu...
Data
Table S1. Isolates of cosmospora‐like mycoparasites and corresponding accession numbers used in the phylogenetic analyses. Table S2. Isolates of the xylariaceous hosts and their accession numbers used in the phylogenetic analyses.
Article
Full-text available
Species of Cosmospora are parasites of other fungi (mycoparasites), including species belonging to the Xylariales. Based on prior taxonomic work, these fungi were determined to be highly host specific. We suspected that the association of Cosmospora and their hosts could not be a result of random chance, and tested the cospeciation of Cosmospora an...