Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) analyses can be useful for distinguishing microbial species. This study conducted FAME analyses on 14 fungal species known to cause grapevine trunk diseases. FAME profiles were dominated by oleic acid, albeit profiles were characteristic enough to separate species. Discriminant analyses suggested that palmitoleic acid/sapienic acid, pentadecylic acid, and an unsaturated 17-carbon fatty acid (17:1ω8 c)could explain 79.8% of the variance in the profiles among species in the first three discriminant functions. FAME profile libraries were created for use in a commercialized software, which was able to accurately identify isolates to the species level, with a low rate (9.4%) of samples to be reassessed. Dendrograms created using neighbor-joining cluster analyses with data from FAME profiles were compared with those using internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region sequences. This revealed that FAME profiles, albeit useful for tentative species identification, should not be used for determining phylogenetic relationships because the dendrograms were significantly unconcordant. Regardless, these results demonstrated the potential of FAME analyses in quickly and initially identifying closely related fungal species or confirming conclusions from other species identification techniques that would require independent validation.
Keywords: Botryosphaeriaceae; Eutypa; esca; fatty acid methyl ester; fungal species identification; gas chromatography; grapevine trunk diseases.