Molecular evidence for diverse populations of cassava-infecting begomoviruses in southern Africa

In this paper we describe results obtained from screening field populations of begomoviruses from infected cassava from six countries in southern Afri ca. It was found that African cassava mosaic virus occurs in five of the si x countries (except Angola), East African cassava mosaic virus is present i n five countries (except Zambia) and South African cassava mosaic virus was detected only in South Africa and Swaziland. In addition, we report for th e first time in southern Africa, the appearance of the Ugandan variant viru s (UgV) which was found frequently in mixed infections with other cassava-i nfecting begomoviruses.