This area of research investigates the genomics, systematics, and evolution of fungi, bacteria, and viruses; the interactions of these organisms with each other, their environment including important hosts; and the evolution of these interactions.
Impact Areas:
- Phytobiomes
- Microbial Ecology
- Epidemiology
- Translational Taxonomy
Researchers in the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology working in the area of Microbial Diversity and Ecology.
The genus Fusarium poses a multifaceted threat to global crop production and animal/human health. The multifunctional online resource was built to support archiving and utilization of rapidly increasing data and knowledge and consists of Fusarium-ID, Fusarium Comparative Genomics Platform (FCGP) and Fusarium Community Platform (FCP).
Cytochrome P450 proteins (CYPs) play diverse and pivotal roles in fungal metabolism and adaptation to specific ecological niches. Fungal genomes encode extremely variable “CYPomes” ranging from one to more than 300 CYPs. This database was built to facilitate the curation and functional and evolutionary studies of fungal CYPs and provides a systematic and searchable catalogue of CYP sequences encoded by 108 fungal species and five oomycete species as well as those encoded by animals and microbes in other kingdoms.
The Fusarium Research Center is a resource center for researchers and others working with Fusarium. Maintained in Buckhout Lab is the world's largest Fusarium collection, comprised of approximately 16,000 isolates of 50 species.
Few pathogen groups can claim the notoriety of the genus Phytophthora, which includes old nemeses like P. infestans and P. capsici that continuously threat agricultural systems, and recently emerged novel pathogens of global concern, such as P. ramorum and P. kernoviae. This online platform was developed to support accurate and rapid identification of newly isolated Phytophthora and to help characterize and catalog the diversity and evolutionary relationships within the genus.
