Tracking the evolutionary trajectory of a young hybrid plant pathogen. New preprint on how triticale powdery mildew evolved in the ~25 years since its emergence. Congrats to @jigisha1.bsky.social and all coauthors! doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Tracking the evolutionary trajectory of a young hybrid plant pathogen

A common mechanism by which emerging plant pathogens gain the ability to infect new hosts is hybridization. Despite its widespread occurrence, the outcomes of hybridization remain largely unpredictabl...

doi.org

Check out our new pre-print! ✨ We cloned AvrWTK4, the first wheat powdery mildew effector recognised by a tandem kinase protein, and show that an HMA-like integrated domain in WTK4 acts as pathogen decoy. Discover the whole story on bioRxiv ⬇️

bioRxivpreprint@biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 11mo ago

An HMA-like integrated domain in the wheat tandem kinase WTK4 recognises an RNase-like pathogen effector https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.26.672365v1

Scientists’ role in defending democracy | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Scientists’ role in defending democracy

The United States’ democratic leadership, commitment to freedom of expression, and investment in the pursuit of knowledge have long enabled its preeminence in science and technology. Yet today we are ...

science.org

📣 NEW PREPRINT 📝 We identified evolutionary origins of many fungal effectors! We show that fungi secrete lots of antimicrobial proteins, and that some of them were repurposed by plant pathogens for host immune suppression. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... cc @teamthomma.bsky.social

Plant-associated fungi co-opt ancient antimicrobials for host manipulation

Evolutionary histories of effector proteins secreted by fungal pathogens to mediate plant colonization remain largely elusive. While most functionally characterized effectors modulate plant immunity, ...

biorxiv.org

Incredibly proud of this work where we developed a method for understanding the information contained in millions of genomes. Another example of NIH funded research.

The American Journal of Human Genetics@ajhgnews.bsky.social · 12mo ago

📣Online NOW! 📄Estimation of demography and mutation rates from one million haploid genomes 🧑‍🤝‍🧑 @jgschraiber.bsky.social @jeffspence.github.io @docedge.bsky.social

I am happy to share my second paper with @samyeaman.bsky.social and collaborators! If you are into hybrid zones and tree genomics, this is for you! www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The genomic basis of local adaptation in the white x Engelmann spruce hybrid zone

Hybridization between species can occur along repeated zones of contact, providing a powerful natural laboratory for studying the interplay between migration and selection, and for identifying loci in...

biorxiv.org

SLiM 5: Eco-evolutionary simulations across multiple chromosomes and full genomes https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.08.07.669155v1

Today, our article "The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly" is finally published in PNAS. I hope that it proves to be a wake-up-call for the whole scientific community. reeserichardson.blog/2025/08/04/a...

A do-or-die moment for the scientific enterprise

Reflecting on our paper “The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly”

reeserichardson.blog

www.wsj.com/science/scie...

Scientific Journals Can’t Keep Up With Flood of Fake Papers

The source of the trouble is “paper mills,” businesses or individuals that charge fees to publish fake studies in legitimate journals.

wsj.com

"Off-season sex in #Zymoseptoria tritici: little room for late encounters" @biorxivpreprint, sharing our latest study on sexual reproduction in Z. tritici — its epidemiological determinants & impact — may interest those working on plant pathogen dynamics. doi.org/10.1101/2025...

Frédéric Suffert@wheatpath.bsky.social · 4y ago

Glad to share the last PhD paper of C Orellana-Torrejon: "Multiple scenarios for sexual crosses in the fungal pathogen #Zymoseptoria tritici on #wheat residues: potential consequences for virulence gene transmission" @INRAE_Bioger @INRAE_ECOSYS @dropsplash doi.org/10.1016/j.fgb.…

Global temperatures would have risen by 12.2 °C (!) since 1990 if everyone in the world had emitted like the wealthiest top 0.1% in world. Fascinating new study in @natclimate.nature.com by Schöngart et al: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

"Population genetics of plant fungal threats: Insights from wheat powdery mildew" I wrote this Primer inspired by the great work of @jigisha1.bsky.social , @fmenardo.bsky.social and colleagues journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @uclnews.bsky.social @plosbiology.org

Agricultural diseases threaten sustainable food production. @jigisha1.bsky.social @fmenardo.bsky.social & co show that the population structure of #Blumeria #WheatPowderyMildew can be predicted by prevailing wind patterns (& reveal genes under recent selection) @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43qfH9F

Very happy to see our paper online: "Population genomics and molecular epidemiology of wheat powdery mildew in Europe". Congrats to @jigisha1.bsky.social and all coauthors! doi.org/10.1371/jour...

Population genomics and molecular epidemiology of wheat powdery mildew in Europe

Agricultural diseases are a major threat to sustainable food production. This study of wheat powdery mildew, a disease caused by the fungus Blumeria graminis, shows that the population structure can b...

doi.org

Very excited with @tobybarilbio.bsky.social to share this preprint about his latest work on TEs! We knew that TEs were very pretty active in this global fungal pathogen of wheat. Now with nearly 2000 Illumina genomes available, we could finally ask questions about historic TE activation waves.

Toby Baril@tobybarilbio.bsky.social · last yr.

Excited to share our latest preprint 🥳 Historic transposon mobilisation waves create distinct pools of adaptive variants in a major crop pathogen @danielcroll.bsky.social #TESky www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

The collaborative paper on adding selection to stdpopsim is out! Learn about how to easily simulate realistic population genomic data with background selection and sweeps, plus some benchmarking of methods for demographic history, DFE, and sweep inference. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Accessible, realistic genome simulation with selection using stdpopsim

Selection is a fundamental evolutionary force that shapes patterns of genetic variation across species. However, simulations incorporating realistic selection along heterogeneous genomes in complex de...

biorxiv.org

Our paper on the evolution of fungicide resistance in wheat powdery mildew is now published! Congrats to all coauthors! doi.org/10.1111/mpp....

Genomic Surveillance and Molecular Evolution of Fungicide Resistance in European Populations of Wheat Powdery Mildew

Mutations conferring fungicide resistance to wheat powdery mildew emerged multiple times and are characterised by distinct geographic ranges in Europe and neighbouring regions.

doi.org