Taxonomy and morphology of plant-parasitic nematodes associated with turfgrasses in North and South Carolina, USA Zeng, Yongsan Ye, Weimin Tredway, Lane Martin, Samuel Martin, Matt Zootaxa 2012 3452 1 46 [151,520,1890,1916] Adenophorea Longidoridae Xiphinema Animalia Dorylaimida 31 32 Nematoda subSpecies americanum sensu   Measurements. See Table 15.   Remarks.  Xiphinema americanum sensulatois a cosmopolitan species, and has been reported from North America( Canada, Mexicoand USA), Australia, Belize, Chile, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Japan, Korea, Iran, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lankaand Uruguayand the EPPO region ( Poland, USSR and the Mediterranean region) ( EPPO 1984; Fadaei et al. 2003; Ye & Robbins 2010). It is a very common species in Arkansas ( Ye & Robbins 2010), also in NC and SC. In the present study,  X. americanum sensulatowas detected in 13 counties in NC and SC. The morphological features of the identified populations did not differ from other populations and the morphometrics did not differ from populations Xiph-4 and Xiph-16 ( Ye & Robbins 2010). It is pathogenic to a wide range of field crops, ornamentals, native plants and shade trees. In the USA, it causes damage to strawberries, fruit trees, forage legumes and forest trees. In this study, it was found in golf course greens, fairways and tees established with bermudagrass but was not found in creeping bentgrass or zoysiagrass. This nematode is most important as a vector of damaging nepoviruses, including tomato ringspot virus ( Forer & Stouffer 1981), tobacco ringspot virus (TRSV) ( McGuire 1964), and cherry rasp leaf virus ( EPPO 1984). Sammons & Barnett (1987)firstly reported TRSV from squash in SC. Due to its economic importance, it is listed as an A1 quarantine organism by the European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization and many other countries ( Kulinich et al. 2003; Brito et al. 2005; Bello et al. 2005).  Xiphinema americanum sensulatois considered to be a species complex ( Lima 1965). By 2000, the number of species in the X. americanum-group had expanded to 49 ( Lamberti et al. 2000), 20 of which have been reported in North America( Robbins & Brown 1991; Luc et al. 1998). However, separation of the species within the group is questionable as it is based on minordifferences in head and tail shapes ( Ye & Robbins 2010).