The ash dieback invasion of Europe was founded by two genetically divergent individuals

McMullan, Mark, Rafiqi, Maryam, Kaithakottil, Gemy, Clavijo, Bernardo J., Bilham, Lorelei, Orton, Elizabeth, Percival-Alwyn, Lawrence, Ward, Ben J., Edwards, Anne, Saunders, Diane G.O., Garcia Accinelli, Gonzalo, Wright, Jonathan, Verweij, Walter, Koutsovoulos, Georgios, Yoshida, Kentaro, Hosoya, Tsuyoshi, Williamson, Louisa, Jennings, Philip, Ioos, Renaud, Husson, Claude, Hietala, Ari M., Vivian-Smith, Adam, Solheim, Halvor, MaCclean, Dan, Fosker, Christine, Hall, Neil ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2808-0009, Brown, James K. M., Swarbreck, David, Blaxter, Mark, Downie, J. Allan and Clark, Matthew D. (2018) The ash dieback invasion of Europe was founded by two genetically divergent individuals. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2 (6). pp. 1000-1008. ISSN 2397-334X

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Abstract

Accelerating international trade and climate change make pathogen spread an increasing concern. Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, the causal agent of ash dieback, is a fungal pathogen that has been moving across continents and hosts from Asian to European ash. Most European common ash trees (Fraxinus excelsior) are highly susceptible to H. fraxineus, although a minority (~5%) have partial resistance to dieback. Here, we assemble and annotate a H. fraxineus draft genome, which approaches chromosome scale. Pathogen genetic diversity across Europe and in Japan, reveals a strong bottleneck in Europe, though a signal of adaptive diversity remains in key host interaction genes. We find that the European population was founded by two divergent haploid individuals. Divergence between these haplotypes represents the ancestral polymorphism within a large source population. Subsequent introduction from this source would greatly increase adaptive potential of the pathogen. Thus, further introgression of H. fraxineus into Europe represents a potential threat and Europe-wide biological security measures are needed to manage this disease.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics,ecology,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1105
Faculty \ School:
Faculty of Science > The Sainsbury Laboratory
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 29 Jul 2021 00:11
Last Modified: 04 Aug 2023 03:31
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/80876
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-018-0548-9

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