22 Sep2026
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Research Highlights
Research Highlights01 / 06
Annual Review of Phytopathology · 2026The next great tree epidemics could strike the Southern Hemisphere
Diseases such as chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease changed northern forests for good. Treena Burgess and Mike Wingfield warn that the south is losing the isolation that kept it safe, and set out how to act before the next outbreak.
Paper: Unveiling a hidden menace: Invasive tree pathogens, less known but increasingly threatening Southern hemisphere forests
Research Highlights02 / 06
New Phytologist · 2026How Europe's fly agaric mushroom settled in South Africa, chemistry and all
The red and white fly agaric arrived in South Africa with forestry. By reading the genomes of 24 mushrooms, an international team including FABI researchers traced it to Europe and found its chemical toolkit unchanged, including compounds that kill tiny roundworms.
Paper: Equipped for success: Genomes and metabolites of the European Amanita muscaria are conserved in its novel South African range
Research Highlights03 / 06
Crop Protection · 2026Smallholder farmers’ knowledge, perception and management of Spodoptera frugiperda (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) on Zea mays at irrigation schemes in Limpopo province, South Africa
The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) was first detected in Limpopo province, South Africa, during the 2016/2017 cropping season and continues to cause significant damage to maize production in the region. Despite the significant damage caused by S. frugiperda to maize,…
Research Highlights04 / 06
PLOS Pathogens · 2025Mouldy crops, hidden poisons: why mycotoxins still threaten our food
Poisons made by moulds on crops cause cancer, sicken livestock and trigger food recalls. FABI's Neriman Yilmaz and colleagues explain why the problem persists, how climate change is shifting it, and what can be done.
Paper: Mycotoxins: An ongoing challenge to food safety and security
Research Highlights05 / 06
Frontiers in Plant Science · 2025How a maize pathogen hides for four weeks before it strikes
Cercospora zeina, the cause of grey leaf spot, grows inside maize leaves for up to 28 days without symptoms. Gene-expression profiling across the infection shows two waves of activity, a nearly 50-fold jump in fungal growth as symptoms appear, and effector proteins that set off the plant's immune response.
Paper: A latent invader: transcriptomics reveals Cercospora zeina’s stealth infection strategy of maize and immune-activating effectors
Research Highlights06 / 06
PLoS Biology · 2025How a family of yeasts keeps rewriting its rules for mating
Some Cryptococcus yeasts cause serious infections in people. A study in PLOS Biology with FABI co-authors compared their genomes and found that the genes controlling mating have been moved, merged and rearranged again and again during evolution.
Paper: The complex evolution and genomic dynamics of mating-type loci in Cryptococcus and Kwoniella
FABI in Numbers
PhD students graduated since 1998
254
FABI's own records, as at November 2025.
MSc students graduated since 1998
460
FABI's own records, as at November 2025.
Research papers since 1998
2 454
FABI journal articles in the publications database, each paper counted once.
Research papers 2023–2025
301
FABI journal articles published 2023–2025, from the publications database.
Total citations since 1998
107 435
Citations of FABI papers with a DOI, from OpenAlex; updated weekly (last 27 Sept 2026).
FABI Campus
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