| Grant number: | 15/10453-8 |
| Support Opportunities: | Regular Research Grants |
| Start date: | January 01, 2016 |
| End date: | December 31, 2017 |
| Field of knowledge: | Agronomical Sciences - Agronomy - Plant Health |
| Principal Investigator: | Paulo Cezar Ceresini |
| Grantee: | Paulo Cezar Ceresini |
| Host Institution: | Faculdade de Engenharia (FEIS). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Ilha Solteira. Ilha Solteira , SP, Brazil |
| City of the host institution: | Ilha Solteira |
Abstract
The fungus Pyricularia oryzae has a worldwide distribution as a rice pathogen but in the last century emerged as an important wheat pathogen in southern Brazil and has spread to other countries in South America. Our main goal is to describe the emergence of a new Pyricularia species comprised of the wheat-adapted population from Brazil. We hypothesize that the Oryza and the Triticum subgroups of Pyricularia oryzae are, in fact, distinct species and should be given different names. Also, we propose that the wheat-infecting populations of P. oryzae had a "de novo" origin from endemic populations of the pathogen that infect other native Poaceae species (invasive to wheat areas) in Brazil, as a result of host shifts that led to sympatric speciation. To test these hypotheses, we will conduct phylogenetic analysis on ten housekeeping loci from sympatric populations of P. oryzae adapted to rice, wheat and other poaceous hosts from Brazil using Bayesian and coalescent-based approaches. In the second part of the research, we aim to elucidate the various steps towards the process of sympatric speciation. We intend to examine both the pathogenicity spectra and the evolution of eleven avirulence (Avr) genes from local P. oryzae populations from distinct hosts. The acceptance of our hypothesis of sympatric speciation will eventually lead to the description of a new Pyricularia species named Pyricularia tritici sp. nov. to accommodate the Pyricularia populations pathogenic on wheat. (AU)
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