CAREER: Impact of Host Radiation on Genome Evolution in Parasites: Microbotryum Hybrids on the Caryophyllaceae

致病生物之间的杂交经常受到极大的关注，尽管人们严重缺乏关于促进这种事件的因素或对寄生虫生态和进化的后果的知识。在这个项目中，由真菌Microbotryum引起的一种常见的植物疾病被用来测试来自密切相关宿主的寄生虫之间的杂交是否更频繁，部分原因是疾病容易跨越宿主边界传播。然后将在实验条件下测试寄生虫杂交种与非杂交种竞争的潜力。通过记录染色体结构的进化，这些研究将确定如何克服杂交种典型的遗传不稳定性，以产生具有新基因组特性的可存活的寄生虫谱系。对寄生虫的研究提供了研究非常快速的进化动态和物种相互作用的机会，此外，对预防疾病造成的人类苦难也非常重要。更广泛地说，杂交的作用已经在广泛的植物和动物中被揭示，而微囊藻是研究基因组结构变化的唯一容易处理的模型。该项目将直接促进基因组学和传染病领域的课程发展，并有助于培训多名本科生进入进化生物学的职业生涯。

Hybridization between disease-causing organisms is often met with great concern despite a critical lack of knowledge about factors that promote such events or the consequences for parasite ecology and evolution. In this project a common disease of plants, caused by the fungus Microbotryum, is used to test whether hybrids are more frequent between parasites from closely related hosts, due partly to the ease of disease transmission across the host boundaries. The potential for parasite hybrids to compete against non-hybrids will then be tested under experimental conditions. By documenting the evolution of chromosome structures, these studies will determine how the genetic instability that is typical of hybrids may be overcome to produce viable parasite lineages with novel genomic properties. Investigation of parasites provides opportunities to study very rapid evolutionary dynamics and species interactions, in addition to being of great importance to preventing human misery cause by disease. More generally, the role of hybridization has been revealed in a broad range of plants and animals, and Microbotryum is a uniquely tractable model to study changes in genome structure. This project will contribute directly into curricular development in areas of genomics and infectious disease and to the training of multiple undergraduate students entering careers in evolutionary biology.