New simple sequence repeat markers reveal undetected diversity in Spanish and Californian Diplodia sapinea populations.

Diplodia sapinea is the causal agent of Diplodia shoot blight, an emerging disease affecting pine forests worldwide. The range expansion of this pathogen in northern Europe has been suggested to be partially facilitated by recent warmer conditions. Although D.

Metatranscriptomics sheds light on the links between the functional traits of fungal guilds and ecological processes in forest soil ecosystems.

Soil fungi belonging to different functional guilds, such as saprotrophs, pathogens, and mycorrhizal symbionts, play key roles in forest ecosystems. To date, no study has compared the actual gene expression of these guilds in different forest soils. We used metatranscriptomics to study the competition for organic resources by these fungal groups in boreal, temperate, and Mediterranean forest soils.

Multiple rearrangements and low inter- and intra-species mitogenome sequence variation in the s.l. species complex.

Introduction: Mitochondria are essential organelles in the eukaryotic cells and responsible for the energy production but are also involved in many other functions including virulence of some fungal species. Although the evolution of fungal mitogenomes have been studied at some taxonomic levels there are still many things to be learned from studies of closely related species.

Methods: In this study, we have analyzed 60 mitogenomes in the five species of the lato complex that all are necrotrophic pathogens on conifers.

Scientific evidence of sustainable plant disease protection strategies for oilseed rape (Brassica napus) in Sweden: a systematic map.

Background: Oilseed rape (OSR; Brassica napus L.) is a highly valued crop for food, feed and industrial use. It is primarily grown in temperate climates, and over recent decades, its area of production and profitability have increased.

Evidence based disease control methods in potato production: a systematic map protocol.

Background: Several challenges, e.g. global trade, population growth, and climate change create future challenges for food production and food safety.

Mitonuclear Genetic Interactions in the Basidiomycete Involve a Non-conserved Mitochondrial Open Reading Frame.

The mitochondrial and nuclear genomes of Eukaryotes are inherited separately and consequently follow distinct evolutionary paths. Nevertheless, the encoding of many mitochondrial proteins by the nuclear genome shows the high level of integration they have reached, which makes mitonuclear genetic interactions all the more conceivable. For each species, natural selection has fostered the evolution of coadapted alleles in both genomes, but a population-wise divergence of such alleles could lead to important phenotypic variation, and, ultimately, to speciation.

Genetic evidence for sexual reproduction and multiple infections of Norway spruce cones by the rust fungus .

Rust fungi are obligate parasites, of plants, with complex and in many cases poorly known life cycles which may include host alteration and up to five spore types with haploid, diploid, and dikaryotic nuclear stages. This study supports that , the causal agent of cherry-spruce rust in Norway spruce, is a macrocyclic heteroecious fungus with all five spore stages which uses two host plants and to complete its life cycle. High genotypic diversity without population structure was found, which suggests predominantly sexual reproduction, random mating and a high gene flow within and between the populations in Fennoscandia.

Optimized metabarcoding with Pacific biosciences enables semi-quantitative analysis of fungal communities.

Recent studies have questioned the use of high-throughput sequencing of the nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region to derive a semi-quantitative representation of fungal community composition. However, comprehensive studies that quantify biases occurring during PCR and sequencing of ITS amplicons are still lacking. We used artificially assembled communities consisting of 10 ITS-like fragments of varying lengths and guanine-cytosine (GC) contents to evaluate and quantify biases during PCR and sequencing with Illumina MiSeq, PacBio RS II and PacBio Sequel I technologies.

Association genetics identifies a specifically regulated Norway spruce laccase gene, PaLAC5, linked to Heterobasidion parviporum resistance.

It is important to improve the understanding of the interactions between the trees and pathogens and integrate this knowledge about disease resistance into tree breeding programs. The conifer Norway spruce (Picea abies) is an important species for the forest industry in Europe. Its major pathogen is Heterobasidion parviporum, causing stem and root rot.

The conifer root rot pathogens Heterobasidion irregulare and Heterobasidion occidentale employ different strategies to infect Norway spruce.

Heterobasidion irregulare and H. occidentale are two closely related conifer root rot pathogens in the H. annosum sensu lato (s.

Genotypic variation in Norway spruce correlates to fungal communities in vegetative buds.

The taxonomically diverse phyllosphere fungi inhabit leaves of plants. Thus, apart from the fungi's dispersal capacities and environmental factors, the assembly of the phyllosphere community associated with a given host plant depends on factors encoded by the host's genome. The host genetic factors and their influence on the assembly of phyllosphere communities under natural conditions are poorly understood, especially in trees.

Estimating the Fitness Effect of Deleterious Mutations During the Two Phases of the Life Cycle: A New Method Applied to the Root-Rot Fungus .

Many eukaryote species, including taxa such as fungi or algae, have a lifecycle with substantial haploid and diploid phases. A recent theoretical model predicts that such haploid-diploid lifecycles are stable over long evolutionary time scales when segregating deleterious mutations have stronger effects in homozygous diploids than in haploids and when they are partially recessive in heterozygous diploids. The model predicts that effective dominance-a measure that accounts for these two effects-should be close to 0.

Side-by-side biochemical comparison of two lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases from the white-rot fungus Heterobasidion irregulare on their activity against crystalline cellulose and glucomannan.

Our comparative studies reveal that the two lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases HiLPMO9B and HiLPMO9I from the white-rot conifer pathogen Heterobasidion irregulare display clear difference with respect to their activity against crystalline cellulose and glucomannan. HiLPMO9I produced very little soluble sugar on bacterial microcrystalline cellulose (BMCC). In contrast, HiLPMO9B was much more active against BMCC and even released more soluble sugar than the H.

Biochemical studies of two lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases from the white-rot fungus Heterobasidion irregulare and their roles in lignocellulose degradation.

Lytic polysaccharide monooxygenases (LPMO) are important redox enzymes produced by microorganisms for the degradation of recalcitrant natural polysaccharides. Heterobasidion irregulare is a white-rot phytopathogenic fungus that causes wood decay in conifers. The genome of this fungus encodes 10 putative Auxiliary Activity family 9 (AA9) LPMOs.

Different Alleles of a Gene Encoding Leucoanthocyanidin Reductase (PaLAR3) Influence Resistance against the Fungus Heterobasidion parviporum in Picea abies.

Despite the fact that fungal diseases are a growing menace for conifers in modern silviculture, only a very limited number of molecular markers for pathogen resistance have been validated in conifer species. A previous genetic study indicated that the resistance of Norway spruce (Picea abies) to Heterobasidion annosum s.l.

Secondary metabolite comparison of the species within the Heterobasidion annosum s.l. complex.

The metabolite production of the five members of the fungal species complex Heterobasidion annosum s.l., i.

Intronic and plasmid-derived regions contribute to the large mitochondrial genome sizes of Agaricomycetes.

Sizes of mitochondrial genomes vary extensively between fungal species although they typically contain a conserved set of core genes. We have characterised the mitochondrial genome of the conifer root rot pathogen Heterobasidion irregulare and compared the size, gene content and structure of 20 Basidiomycete mitochondrial genomes. The mitochondrial genome of H.

Ectomycorrhizal Cortinarius species participate in enzymatic oxidation of humus in northern forest ecosystems.

In northern forests, belowground sequestration of nitrogen (N) in complex organic pools restricts nutrient availability to plants. Oxidative extracellular enzymes produced by ectomycorrhizal fungi may aid plant N acquisition by providing access to N in macromolecular complexes. We test the hypotheses that ectomycorrhizal Cortinarius species produce Mn-dependent peroxidases, and that the activity of these enzymes declines at elevated concentrations of inorganic N.

Evolution of RNA interference proteins dicer and argonaute in Basidiomycota.

RNA interference (RNAi) refers to a mechanism in which cells control gene expression, protect the genome against mobile repetitive DNA sequences, retro elements and transposons, and defend themselves against viruses. Two core components, dicer and argonaute, are central in the RNAi machinery. In this study the evolution of argonaute and dicer genes were analyzed with 43 fungal genomes, with the focus on Basidiomycota.

Polyporales genomes reveal the genetic architecture underlying tetrapolar and bipolar mating systems.

The process of mating in Basidiomycota is regulated by homeodomain-encoding genes (HD) and pheromones and G protein-coupled pheromone receptor genes (P/R). Whether these genes are actually involved in determining mating type distinguishes mating systems that are considered tetrapolar (two locus) from bipolar (one locus). Polyporales are a diverse group of wood-decay basidiomycetes displaying high variability in mating and decay systems.

Extensive trans-specific polymorphism at the mating type locus of the root decay fungus Heterobasidion.

Incompatibility systems in which individuals bearing identical alleles reject each other favor the maintenance of a diversity of alleles. Mushroom mating type loci (MAT) encode for dozens or hundreds of incompatibility alleles whose loss from the population is greatly restricted through negative frequency selection, leading to a system of alleles with highly divergent sequences. Here, we use DNA sequences of homeodomain (HD) encoding genes at the MAT locus of five closely related species of the root rot basidiomycete Heterobasidion annosum sensu lato to show that the extended coalescence time of MAT alleles greatly predates speciation in the group, contrasting loci outside of MAT that show allele divergences largely consistent with the species phylogeny with those of MAT, which show rampant trans-species polymorphism.

A genome-wide association study identifies genomic regions for virulence in the non-model organism Heterobasidion annosum s.s.

The dense single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) panels needed for genome wide association (GWA) studies have hitherto been expensive to establish and use on non-model organisms. To overcome this, we used a next generation sequencing approach to both establish SNPs and to determine genotypes. We conducted a GWA study on a fungal species, analysing the virulence of Heterobasidion annosum s.

A 2nd generation linkage map of Heterobasidion annosum s.l. based on in silico anchoring of AFLP markers.

In this study, we present a 2(nd) generation genetic linkage map of a cross between the North American species Heterobasidion irregulare and H. occidentale, based on the alignment of the previously published 1(st) generation map to the parental genomes. We anchored 216 of the original 308 AFLP markers to their respective restriction sites using an in silico-approach.

Insight into trade-off between wood decay and parasitism from the genome of a fungal forest pathogen.

Parasitism and saprotrophic wood decay are two fungal strategies fundamental for succession and nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. An opportunity to assess the trade-off between these strategies is provided by the forest pathogen and wood decayer Heterobasidion annosum sensu lato. We report the annotated genome sequence and transcript profiling, as well as the quantitative trait loci mapping, of one member of the species complex: H.