FABI News
8 Oct 2018
Hunting for ambrosia beetles in Tzaneen
During the month of September, a team of FABIans went collecting beetles in the natural forests of Tzaneen. This forms part of the PhD project of Wilma Nel, that aims to gain a better understanding of the ambrosia beetles and their fungal associates infesting eucalyptus and pin oak wood in South Africa.
1 Oct 2018
FABI celebrates 11th PhD thesis in the bag at Erika Viljoen’s prestige seminar
1 Oct 2018
Professor Burton highlights ways to advance SDGs in Africa at FABI
28 Sep 2018
Blue skies and burnt trees
PhD candidate Darryl Herron shares his experiences on a recent field trip to the Cape.
26 Sep 2018
FABIans get a sneak peek of some of South Africa's brightest young scientists
Every year, hundreds of Grade 7s and 12s, descend on the University of Pretoria's L.C. de Villiers sports grounds to take part in the Northern Gauteng Science Fair where they transform the Rembrandt Hall into a science wonderland.
Research Features
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An aggressive ambrosia beetle and its fungal symbiont that has the potential to kill many tree species, were recently discovered in South Africa. This pest was detected on London Plane trees in the KwaZulu-Natal National Botanical Gardens, Pietermaritzburg. It has since been confirmed in Durban, Hartswater, Bloemfontein, George, Knysna and Johannesburg.
Workshops & Symposia
1-5 October 2018
21-25 May 2018
Advanced Phylogenetics
Workshop 1
2018
New Publications
Vivas M, Rolo V, Wingfield MJ, Slippers B. (2019) Maternal environment regulates morphological and physiological traits in Eucalyptus grandis. Forest Ecology and Management 432(15):631-636.
10.1016/j.foreco.2018.10.016
Palmer M, Venter SN, Coetzee MPA, Steenkamp ET. (2018) Prokaryotic species are sui generis evolutionary units. Systematic and Applied Microbiology
10.1016/j.syapm.2018.10.002
Simpson MC, Martin Coetzee, Magriet van der Nest, Mike Wingfield, Brenda Wingfield. (2018) Ceratocystidaceae exhibit high levels of recombination at the mating-type (MAT) locus. Fungal Biology
10.1016/j.funbio.2018.09.003
Benndorf R, Guo H, Sommerwerk E, Weigel C, Garcia-Altares M, Martin K, Hu H, Küfner M, De Beer ZW, Poulsen M, Beemelmanns C. (2018) Natural products from Actinobacteria associated with fungus-growing termites. Antibiotics 7(3):83.
10.3390/antibiotics7030083 
Fru FF, Steenkamp ET, Wingfield MJ, Roux J. (2018) High genetic diversity of Fusarium circinatum associated with the first outbreak of pitch canker on Pinus patula in South Africa. Southern Forest: a Journal of Forest Science
10.2989/20702620.2018.1496312