Understanding the impact of the ash dieback invasion of Europe

英国第三大常见树种白蜡树（Fraxinus excelsior）的大部分将被白蜡树枯死真菌（Hymenoscyphus fraxineus）夺走，这种真菌的入侵估计会给英国造成150亿英镑的损失。了解宿主和病原体之间的相互作用对我们的农业和野生环境的繁荣至关重要，特别是因为气候变化很可能使病原体在新的地区殖民。白蜡树枯梢病系统是一个我们可以研究真菌在多态宿主和病原体中的入侵和共同进化的系统，也是一个公众投入大量资金的系统。该项目将采用最先进的基因组测序和分析技术来了解白蜡树枯梢病系统中的病原体入侵和宿主抗性，并将包括从英国各地收集样本，以及对东亚的病原体数据进行测序和分析。

The UK is expected to lose the majority of its third most common tree species, ash (Fraxinus excelsior), to the ash dieback fungus (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) and this fungal invasion is estimated to cost Britain £15 billion.Understanding the interaction between hosts and pathogens is fundamental to the prosperity of our agricultural and wild environments, particularly because climate change is likely to allow pathogens to colonise new regions. The ash dieback system is one in which we can study fungal invasion and co-evolution in a polymorphic host and pathogen and one in which the public are heavily invested.The project will employ state-of-the-art genome sequencing and analysis technologies to understand pathogen invasion and host resistance in the ash dieback system, and will involve collecting samples from across the UK as well as sequencing and analysing pathogen data from East Asia.