FABI News
13 Sep 2019
The CFTPP Team visit the Chinese Embassy
On 28 August, the CERC-FABI Tree Protection Programme members (CFTPP) team, visited the Chinese Embassy in Pretoria.
12 Sep 2019
FABI considers dying trees and fungal biodiversity in Namaqualand
FABI Founder Director Prof. Mike Wingfield and Prof. Pedro Crous, Director of the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute (WFBI, Netherlands) and also holding a Professorship in FABI at the University of Pretoria spent four days examining diseases of plants in Namaqualand in the Northern Cape Province.
12 Sep 2019
Chilean Forestry Delegation visits FABI
9 Sep 2019
Fourteen FABIans capped at the 2019 Spring Graduation Ceremony
The University of Pretoria conferred 14 postgraduate degrees – eight PhD degrees and six MSc degrees – to FABIans during the Spring Graduation Ceremony on 5 September. Congratulations to these FABIans on their remarkable achievements!
6 Sep 2019
Prof. Martin Coetzee attends the Mycological Society of America (USA) Meeting 2019
Professor Martin Coetzee attended the 87th meeting of the Mycological Society of America (MSA) from 10-14 August in Minneapolis, USA.
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.
FABI technology unravels the genetics behind fungal genome evolution The RIPper is a bioinformatics tool for the for quantifying genome-wide RIP mutations in fungal genomes. The strength of this software lies in the automation of laborious techniques to study the mutation process called Repeat-Induced Point mutations (RIP). The RIPper applies these technique
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
Visagie CM, Yilmaz N, Vanderwolf K, Renaud JB, Sumarah MW, Houbraken J, Assebgui R, Seifert KA, Malloch D. (2020) Penicillium diversity in Canadian bat caves, including a new species, P. speluncae. Fungal Systematics and Evolution 5:1-15.
10.3114/fuse.2020.05.01
Tchotet Tchoumi JM, Coetzee MPA, Rajchenberg M, Roux J. (2019) Taxonomy and species diversity of Ganoderma species in the Garden Route National Park of South Africa inferred from morphology and multilocus phylogenies. Mycologia
10.1080/00275514.2019.1635387
van Wyk S, Harrison CH, Wingfield BD, De Vos L, van der Merwe NA, Steenkamp ET. (2019) The RIPper, a web-based tool for genome-wide quantification of Repeat-Induced Point (RIP) mutations. PeerJ 7:e7447.
10.7717/peerj.7447 
Schröder ML, Slippers B, Wingfield MJ, Hurley BP. (2019) Invasion history and management of Eucalyptus snout beetles in the Gonipterus scutellatus species complex. Journal of Pest Science
10.1007/s10340-019-01156-y
Vainio EJ, Bezos D, Braganca H, Cleary M, Fourie G, Georgieva M, Ghelardini L, Hunnunen S, Ioos R, Martin-Garcia J, Martinez-Alvarez P, Mullet M, Oszako T, Papazova-Anakieve I, Piskur B, Romeralo C, Sanz-Ros A, Steenkamp ET, Tubby K, Wingfield MJ, Diez JJ. (2019) Sampling and detection strategies for the Pine Pitch Canker (PPC) disease pathogen Fusarium circinatum in Europe. Forests 10(723):1-28.
10.3390/f10090723
Vacant positions
Post-doctoral fellows (Download PDF)
The Forestry and Agricultural Biotechnology Institute (FABI; www.fabinet.up.ac.za) based at the University of Pretoria is a globally recognized center with research focused broadly on the health of plants and plant products. The institute also accounts for the fact that the University of Pretoria is listed as one of the world’s top five centers to study fungi.
FABI is happy to announce the availability of two post-doctoral research fellowships dedicated to the study of fungi. More specifically, the successful candidates will conduct research on the fungal genus Fusarium including pursuing questions relating to the taxonomy and evolutionary genomics of these fungi important to plant and human health. At FABI, the post-doctoral fellows will join a large and internationally recognized team of researchers working on a broad range of topics relating to Fusarium species.
The two post-doctoral fellows will work in close collaboration with colleagues at the Westerdijk Fungal Biodiversity Institute (WI; http://www.westerdijkinstitute.nl) in the Netherlands. They will thus also have opportunities to engage closely with collaborators globally and to benefit from international science networking. Funding for the fellowships will be at a competitive level and dependent on the experience and accomplishments of the incumbents.
Expressions of interest and applications should be addressed Dr. Neriman Yilmaz. This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.