FABI News
17 Jul 2019
FABIans celebrate Arista Fourie’s prestige seminar – the eighth in 2019
16 Jul 2019
Insects on the menu at the FABI Entomology Journal Club social
15 Jul 2019
Modelling Workshop hosted by FABI
FABI hosted a simulation modelling workshop led by two leaders in the field, Dr Serge Savary and Dr Laetitia Willocquet; both senior scientists at the AGIR Research unit of INRA’s Research Centre of Toulouse in France.
10 Jul 2019
FABIans enter the Magic Kingdom at SPOOF 2019
Disney’s Magic Kingdom welcomed FABIans for this year’s annual meeting of the Society for the Presentation of Outrageous Findings (SPOOF). The FABI Social Club worked tirelessly to transform Tuks Monate into a magical wonderland filled with fantastically dressed inhabitants.
9 Jul 2019
Developing collaboration with colleagues at UNESP Brazil
Research Features
The Polyphagous Shothole Borer (PHSB) was discovered for the first time in South Africa by the FABI team in 2017. Since then, this beetle and its fungus have been found killing trees in all provinces in South Africa, except Mpumalanga. It attacks agricultural and forestry crops, street and garden trees, as well as several native tree species.
With the increased availability in genome data, inferences regarding evolutionary relationships among taxa can now be performed on a genome-wide scale. But it is widely accepted that not all parts of such massive datasets support the same evolutionary hypothesis. Because of this, a group of researchers at FABI recently investigated the effect of this.
Comparative genomics is shaping our notion of what fungal species are. Based on current data, these unique evolutionary units are separated from one another by boundaries that are porous under certain conditions. This affects our expectations regarding their population biology and evolution, and our strategies for recognizing and controlling them.
Approaches for characterizing metabolic potential from genomic sequences have previously been predicted to be useful in the description of bacterial taxa. Dr Marike Palmer, has recently employed these approaches for identifying biological processes contributing to the divergence of bacteria with a variety of lifestyles.
Plastids play an integral role in wood formation, and yet they are routinely ignored in the study of xylogenesis in forest trees. Desre Pinard and Dr Eshchar Mizrachi have published a review highlighting the unique biology of plastids in wood, suggesting that a new type of plastid, the xylopast, exists.
Two research papers from FABI were selected as cover stories in two consecutive issues of the international journal, Plant Pathology. The journal is published by Wiley for the British Society of Plant Pathology.
A PhD student in FABI, Runlei Chang, has discovered and described 19 new fungal species from China as part of the research for his thesis. These fungi are all associated with conifer-infesting bark beetles and their mites and belong to well-known genera such as Ophiostoma and Leptographium.
The use of genome data to characterize species and elucidate relationships, particularly between problematic taxa, has become routine practice in bacteria. Recently, researchers from FABI joined in an international effort to describe two novel genera and characterize these within the larger context of the important bacterial group Burkholderia.
Workshops & Symposia
13-15 May 2019
New Publications
van der Nest A, Wingfield MJ, Janoušek J, Barnes I. (2019) Lecanosticta acicola: A growing threat to expanding global pine forests and plantations. Molecular Plant Pathology
10.1111/mpp.12853
Estrada-de los Santos P, Palmer M, Steenkamp ET, Maluk M, Beukes C, Hirsch AM, James EK, Venter SN. (2019) Trinickia dabaoshanensis sp. nov., a new name for a lost species. Archives in Microbiology
10.1007/s00203-019-01703-2
Queffelec J, Wooding AL, Greef JM, Garnas JR, Hurley BP, Wingfield MJ, Slippers B. (2019) Mechanisms that influence sex ratio variation in the invasive hymenopteran Sirex noctilio in South Africa. Ecology and Evolution :1-8.
10.5061/dryad.f3p8j8g 
Fourie A, van der Nest MA, De Vos L, Wingfield MJ, Wingfield BD, Barnes I. (2019) QTL mapping of mycelial growth and aggressiveness to distinct hosts in Ceratocystis pathogens. Fungal Genetics and Biology 131:103242.
10.1016/j.fgb.2019.103242
van der Nest A, Wingfield MJ, Ortiz PC, Barnes I. (2019) Biodiversity of Lecanosticta pine-needle blight pathogens suggests a Mesoamerican Centre of origin.. IMA Fungus 1:2
10.1186/s43008-019-0004-8