Leticia Botella Sánchez
Current research interests:
I have developed my scientific carrier in the field of Plant and Forest Pathology. Although I am interested in all the aspects and factors involved in plant and tree pathosystems from the molecular to the ecological level, I am mostly focused on the field of mycovirology, the study of the occurrence and diversity of mycoviruses on fungal tree pathogens, such as Gremmeniella abietina, Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, Fusarium circinatum and now Phytophthora species. By studying the virome of fungal pathogens we can answer unresolved questions related to their pathogenicity, and evolutionary and invasion history.
Key publications:
- Botella, L., Santamaría, O., Diez, J. J. (2010). Fungi associated with the decline of Pinus halepensis in Spain. Fungal Diversity, 40(1), 1–11.
- Botella, L., Diez, J. J. (2011). Phylogenic diversity of fungal endophytes in Spanish stands of Pinus halepensis. Fungal Diversity, 47(1), 9–18.
- Martínez-Álvarez, P., Vainio, E. J., Botella, L., Hantula, J., Diez, J. J. (2014). Three mitovirus strains infecting a single isolate of Fusarium circinatum are the first putative members of the family Narnaviridae detected in a fungus of the genus Fusarium. Archives of Virology, 159(8), 2153–5.
- Schoebel, C. N., Botella, L., Lygis, V., Rigling, D. (2017). Population genetic analysis of a parasitic mycovirus to infer the invasion history of its fungal host. Molecular Ecology 26, 2482–2497.
- Botella, L., Hantula, J. (2018). Description, distribution, and relevance of viruses of the forest pathogen Gremmeniella abietina. Viruses 10, 654.
- Botella, L., Janoušek, J., Maia, C., Jung, M. H., Raco, M., and Jung, T. (2020). Marine oomycetes of the genus Halophytophthora harbor viruses related to Bunyaviruses. Microbiol. 11, 1–13.
Member of the Mitoviridae study group of International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses
(ICTV) coordinated by Professor Max Nibert from Harvard Medical School (Boston, United States)
