Evolutionary genomics reveals variation in structure and genetic content implicated in virulence and lifestyle in the genus Gaeumannomyces.

Gaeumannomyces tritici is responsible for take-all disease, one of the most important wheat root threats worldwide. High-quality annotated genome resources are sorely lacking for this pathogen, as well as for the closely related antagonist and potential wheat take-all biocontrol agent, G. hyphopodioides.

Elite UK winter wheat cultivars differ in their ability to support the colonization of beneficial root-infecting fungi.

In numerous countries, Gaeumannomyces species, within the Magnaporthaceae family, have previously been implicated in the suppression of take-all root disease in wheat. A UK arable isolate collection (n=47) was gathered and shown to contain Gaeumannomyces hyphopodioides and an unnamed Magnaporthaceae species. A novel seedling pot bioassay revealed that both species had a similar ability to colonize cereal roots; however, rye (Secale cereale) was only poorly colonized by the Magnaporthaceae species.

Long-term spatiotemporal stability and dynamic changes in helminth infracommunities of bank voles (Myodes glareolus) in NE Poland.

Parasites are considered to be an important selective force in host evolution but ecological studies of host-parasite systems are usually short-term providing only snap-shots of what may be dynamic systems. We have conducted four surveys of helminths of bank voles at three ecologically similar woodland sites in NE Poland, spaced over a period of 11 years, to assess the relative importance of temporal and spatial effects on helminth infracommunities. Some measures of infracommunity structure maintained relative stability: the rank order of prevalence and abundance of Heligmosomum mixtum, Heligmosomoides glareoli and Mastophorus muris changed little between the four surveys.