Recent research accomplishments on early detection of Xylella fastidiosa outbreaks in the Mediterranean Basin

60th MPU Anniversary Special Section.
Xylella fastidiosa is a major transboundary plant pest, causing severe socioeconomic impacts. Development of preventive strategies and methods for surveillance, early detection, monitoring, and accurate diagnosis of X. fastidiosa and its vectors, are keys to preventing the effects of this plant pathogen, and assist timely eradication or optimisation of containment measures. This review focuses on approaches for early detection of X. fastidiosa in the Mediterranean Basin, including development of climatic suitability risk maps to determine areas of potential establishment, and epidemiological models to assist in outbreak management through optimized surveillance and targeted responses. The usefulness of airborne hyperspectral and thermal images from remote sensing to discriminate X. fastidiosa infections from other biotic and abioticinduced spectral signatures is also discussed. The most commonly used methods for identifying X. fastidiosa in infected plants and vectors, and the molecular approaches available to genetically characterize X. fastidiosa strains, are described. Each of these approaches has trade-offs, but stepwise or simultaneous combinations of these methods may help to contain X. fastidiosa epidemics in the Mediterranean Basin.
Some of the research presented in this review was funded by the following projects: BeXyl (Beyond Xylella, Integrated Management Strategies for Mitigating Xylella fastidiosa impact in Europe; grant ID 101060593, from European Union’s Horizon Europe ‘Food, Bioeconomy Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment’ Programme); XF-ACTORS (Xylella fastidiosa Active Containment Through a Multidisciplinary-Oriented Research Strategy; grant 727987, from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Research Programme); POnTE (Pest Organisms Threatening Europe; grant ID 635646, from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Research Programme); E-RTA2017-00004-C06-02 (Desarrollo de estrategias de erradicación, contención y control de X. fastidiosa en España) from ‘Programa Estatal de I+D+I Orientada a los Retos de la Sociedad of the Spanish Government AEI-INIA Spain’ and the Spanish Olive Oil Interprofesional; Project P18-RT-4184 from Junta de Andalucia and the European Regional Development Fund; and the Intramural Project 201840E111 and the Thematic Interdisciplinary Platform on X. fastidiosa (PTI Sol-Xyl) from CSIC.