Eighty-eight isolates of Gremmeniella abietina var. abietina belonging to the Asian, European and North American races were cultivated on agar plates and their fatty acids and sterols were extracted and analysed.

Fourteen fatty acids and seven sterols were detected by gas chromatography. Multivariate discriminant analysis revealed distinct differences between the contents of fatty acids and sterols (FAST-profiles) of the three races; the most distinct was the Asian race. Additionally, the presence of two ecologically different types in Finland, the large tree and small tree type (LTT and STT, respectively) was confirmed on the basis of their significantly different FAST-profiles. The FAST-profiles of European STT more closely resemble the American race than the European LTT. The diversity of North American isolates of the European race, which were supposedly initially introduced from Europe in the 1960s, were considerably higher than the diversity of the European LTT or STT isolates.