ARIS LOG: 0068708. TITLE: LEVERAGING POPULATION GENOMICS TO UNDERSTAND THE MIGRATION AND EVOLUTION OF THE CAUSAL PATHOGENS OF BOXWOOD BLIGHT

The goal of this project is to characterize evolutionary changes in the genomes of fungal plant pathogens in the genus Calonectria to identify gene families or individual genes that play a role in host plant infection by the target pathogen species C. henricotiae and C. pseudonaviculata. Specific project objectives are: 1) characterize evolutionary relationships among target fungal plant pathogens in the genus Calonectria and closely related fungi in the family Nectriaceae through generation of a time-calibrated phylogeny using previously identified single-copy protein sequence data, 2) identify rapidly evolving gene families by measuring gene family expansion and contraction across the time-calibrated phylogeny, 3) identify gene families or genes that play a role in host plant infection through functional annotation of protein sequence data from rapidly evolving gene families in target pathogens.