Species Recognition and Reproductive Isolation in Fungi: Neurospora, an Evolutionary Model

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DEB-0316710"Species recognition and reproductive isolation in fungi: Neurospora an evolutionary model"A grant has been awarded to Dr. John W Taylor of University of California at Berkeley to recognize the limits of species in the fungus Neurospora. Taylor and colleagues will recognize species that are genetically isolated using evolutionary analysis of DNA variation and will recognize species that are reproductively isolated using mating success. Use of the two approaches has discovered three new species in the N. crassa branch of the outbreeding Neurospora species and this grant will focus on these three new species, as well as the application of the two methods of recognizing species to the N. discreta branch of the genus. When concluded, this research should provide the fundamental knowledge needed to make Neurospora as useful to evolutionary biology as has been Drosophila or E. coli.This research is important because it is providing the most comprehensive comparison in any organism of the two biologically important methods of recognizing species, genetic isolation and reproductive isolation. For fungi, it is doubly important because reproductive success cannot be assessed in most fungi, but genetic isolation can. Recognizing species is essential to all comparative biology and, in fungi, is of fundamental practical importance to fields as diverse as vaccine design, indoor air quality and the unwanted introduction of exotic fungi - either by bioerror or bioterror. The comparative biology made possible by the results of this grant will allow biologists to use the newly discovered populations of N. discreta found throughout North America, and the newly sequenced genomes of N. crassa and N. discreta, to learn how changes in genes and their activity allow organisms to adapt to local environment. The research supported by this grant will provide the roadmap of the evolutionary history of Neurospora, and this map will allow biologists to learn how the road was built.