Inferring reproductive and demographic parameters of populations is crucial to our understanding of species ecology and evolutionary potential but can be challenging, especially in partially clonal organisms. Here, we describe a new and accurate method, cloncase, for estimating both the rate of sexual vs. asexual reproduction and the effective population size, based on the frequency of clonemat...

The wheat thrips, Haplothrips tritici, is known from across eastern Europe and adjoining areas of Asia into western Europe and north Africa, and is widely regarded as a pest of cultivated cereal crops, particularly of Triticum but also of Hordeum (Özsisli 2011). The identity of this thrips species is not in doubt, but a closely similar species, Haplothrips cerealis, was described from Egypt (Pr...

We recently showed that the wheat pathogen Stagonospora nodorum produces proteinaceous host-selective toxins (HSTs). These toxins include SnTox1 as well as SnToxA, a HST first identified from Pyrenophora tritici-repentis that was implicated in a very recent horizontal gene transfer event from S. nodorum to P. tritici-repentis. Compelling evidence implicating SnToxA and SnTox1 in disease develop...

Tan spot of wheat (Triticum aestivum), caused by the fungus Pyrenophora tritici-repentis, has significant agricultural and economic impact. Ptr ToxA (ToxA), the first discovered proteinaceous host-selective toxin, is produced by certain P. tritici-repentis races and is necessary and sufficient to cause cell death in sensitive wheat cultivars. We present here the high-resolution crystal structur...

The Mycosphaerella complex is both poly- and paraphyletic, containing several different families and genera. The genus Mycosphaerella is restricted to species with Ramularia anamorphs, while Septoria is restricted to taxa that cluster with the type species of Septoria, S. cytisi, being closely related to Cercospora in the Mycosphaerellaceae. Species that occur on graminicolous hosts represent a...

There is a large diversity of genetically defined resistance genes in bread wheat against the powdery mildew pathogen Blumeria graminis (B. g.) f. sp. tritici. Many confer race-specific resistance to this pathogen, but until now only the mildew avirulence gene AvrPm3a2/f2 that is recognized by Pm3a/f was known molecularly. We performed map-based cloning and genome-wide association studies to is...