Beyond Asexual: Genomics-Driven Progress in Unveiling Sexual Reproduction in Cereal Rust Fungi.

Recent advances in genomics technologies have revolutionized our understanding of cereal rust fungi, providing unprecedented insights into the complexities of their sexual life cycle. Genomic approaches, including long-read sequencing, genome assembly, and haplotype phasing technologies, have revealed critical insights into mating systems, genetic diversity, virulence evolution, and host adaptation. Population genomics studies have uncovered diverse reproductive strategies across different cereal rust species and geographic regions, highlighting the interplay between sexual recombination and asexual reproduction.

New Races with Wider Virulence Indicate Rapid Evolution of f. sp. in the Southern Cone of America.

Wheat yellow (stripe) rust, caused by f. sp. (), is one of the most devastating diseases of wheat worldwide.

Scald resistance in hybrid rye (): genomic prediction and GWAS.

Rye (.) is an important cereal crop used for food, beverages, and feed, especially in North-Eastern Europe. While rye is generally more tolerant to biotic and abiotic stresses than other cereals, it still can be infected by several diseases, including scald caused by .

Recombination in the wheat stem rust pathogen mediated by an indigenous barberry species in Spain.

The comeback of wheat stem rust in Europe, caused by f. sp. , and the prevalence of the alternate (sexual) host in local areas have recently regained attention as a potential threat to European wheat production.

Stem rust on barberry species in Europe: Host specificities and genetic diversity.

The increased emergence of cereal stem rust in southern and western Europe, caused by the pathogen , and the prevalence of alternate (sexual) host, species, have regained attention as the sexual host may serve as source of novel pathogen variability that may pose a threat to cereal supply. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the functional role of species in the current epidemiological situation of cereal stem rust in Europe. Surveys in 11 European countries were carried out from 2018 to 2020, where aecial infections from five barberry species were collected.