14 - 17 July 2025

Invited speakers

Reconciling the rusts and the consequences of a complex life cycle

In terms of species numbers, the rust fungi (Pucciniales) are an incredibly successful lineage.  Together, the more than 7000 described species form the largest known monophyletic group of plant pathogens, and the 2nd largest order of Fungi.  All are obligate parasites of vascular plants including agricultural, forest and ornamental crops resulting in billions of dollars of damage worldwide each year.  An intriguing aspect of rust biology is that many species are heteroecious, i.e., require alternation between two unrelated hosts in order to complete their life cycle.  Whether the character of heteroecism is ancestral or derived within the rusts has never been satisfactorily resolved. Most classical treatments of rust classification were based on the hypothesis that “primitive” hosts (e.g., ferns) harbored “primitive” rusts (e.g., Uredinopsis, Hyalopsora) that alternate on members of the Pinaceae.  However, alternative hypotheses of rust evolution have proposed various short-cycled primarily tropical rusts as ancestral, with the defining characteristic of heteroecism thus being derived within the group.  Molecular studies based on rDNA genes have since disproved the fern rust hypothesis, but the second hypothesis remains.  This study analyzes loci from multiple genes and taxa selected from all known families to resolve the base of the rust fungi and infer ancestral characters including the origins of heteroecism for the order, and the implications for how this strategy may have been adaptive for the lineage. 

Responding to challenges: an insider’s view of a fungal pathogen spatiotemporal organization

In response to a changing environment, many fungal pathogens adapt their morphology to disseminate, acquire nutrients, and escape the immune system. The human fungal pathogen Candida albicans can switch in a few hours from an ovoid shaped cell of approximately five microns to filamentous cells hundreds of microns long with multiple branches, a process critical for virulence. How are such shape changes initiated and sustained? To decipher the cellular, physical and biochemical mechanisms that underly these changes, we use a combination of molecular genetics and live cell microscopy. I will discuss our findings, including the role of key components of cell polarity and membrane traffic, at different temporal and spatial scales, during Candida albicans growth in distinct environments. Furthermore, this talk will cover the relationship, and causality, between developmental states and physical properties of the cytoplasm.   

Fungal Life Aquatic

Fungi are prevalent in aquatic ecosystems, from freshwater ponds and streams to the open ocean and frozen polar regions. Relative to their terrestrial counterparts, we have a limited understanding of the biology, ecology and evolution of aquatic fungi. What are the underpinning mechanisms used by fungi to survive and sometimes thrive in aquatic ecosystems? How did such mechanisms evolve and to what extent are they specific to aquatic fungi? Our approach to address these questions has been to study aquatic fungi in their natural habitats as well as with model representatives in the laboratory. Using specific examples from our recent work, I will cover how some fungi from the open ocean use cell morphological plasticity as and adaptive strategy to changing resource ability, how some marine fungi utilise associations with other organisms to survive the harsh environment of the intertidal zone and the evolutionary processes involved in the niche expansion of an enigmatic group of aquatic saprotrophs.

Gene loss and evolutionary divergence in lipid biosynthesis and DNA repair pathways of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) form nutritional symbioses within the roots of most land plants and influence plant productivity, survival, and composition. Their cell biology is unique but poorly understood, and as part of our efforts to understand the diversity and dynamics of individual cells during symbiosis, we developed a phylogenomics framework for comparative transcriptome analyses. The highly divergent protein sequences found in AMF render functional inferences difficult such that roughly half of their genes have no predicted function. Here, I will describe our efforts using sequence and structural similarity approaches to improve the functional annotation of AMF genes, using comparisons to Mucoromycota and Dikarya species. Focusing on lipid biosynthesis and DNA repair pathways, I will illustrate specific examples where structural predictions allow to distinguish gene losses from extreme sequence divergence. This effort to identify and curate orthologous groups will enhance the meaningfulness of omics applied to AMF and other fungi.

Understanding interactions between plants and microbes, the role of mycorrhizal symbionts

Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi-associated hyphosphere microbiomes can be considered as the second genome of plants. Their composition can be thought of as a stably recurring component of a holobiont, defined by the hyphosphere core microbiome, which is thought to benefit AM fungal fitness and that of the associated plant. I will review evidence indicating the existence of the hyphosphere core microbiome, highlight its functions linked to those functions lacking in AM fungi and associated plants, and further explore the mechanisms by which different core members ensure their stable coexistence. I will suggest that deciphering and utilising the hyphosphere core microbiome provides an entry point for understanding the complex interactions among plants, AM fungi and bacteria.

Adaptation of Candida albicans to the human host

Candida albicans is a commensal fungus of the oral, genital, and gastrointestinal tracks of humans. However, under specific environmental conditions and immune deficiencies, C. albicans can become pathogenic causing 400,000 life-threatening systemic infections, and 150 million mucosal infections worldwide each year. The balance between commensalism and infection is tightly regulated by actions of the microbiome and the innate immune system. The cell wall of C. albicans is a highly dynamic organelle, with the structure and composition changing in response to environmental adaptation. These changes in cell wall organisation lead to an altered host-pathogen, and can either promote pro-inflammatory responses, or can enable the pathogen to evade detection by the innate immune system, with both outcomes promoting disease. This talk will cover our most recent research on understanding how C. albicans adapts to host-induced environmental conditions, and the impact this adaptation has on the host-pathogen interaction. 

Exploring the Basis of Cell Cycle-Associated Development to Understand Disease Caused by the Rice Blast Fungus Magnaporthe oryzae

The filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae causes a devastating disease in cultivated rice that destroys enough rice to feed 60 million people in the world. M. oryzae it is widely known for being highly variable, undergoing host jumps and causing new outbreaks, constituting a threat to global food security. M. oryzae causes infection thanks to the formation of a specialised cell called the appressorium. The appressorium develops from a three-celled spore upon contact with the surface of a leaf. During appressorium development the apical cell of the spore undergoes a round of mitosis, whilst the other two undergo autophagy-mediated cell death. It is unknown how the mitotic cell cycle operates coordinated with appressorium development. In the lab we are dissecting the molecular mechanisms associated to cell cycle- to understand how it is intertwined with other pathways to drive appressorium development and infection. We use a combinatory approach of phosphoproteomics, cell biology, transcriptomics and genetics for it.

Fungal adaptation in the Anthropocene: optimism and obstacles

Fungi play critical roles in ecological resilience, from nutrient cycling to supporting biodiversity. Fungi are master adaptors, and utilise a variety of adaptive strategies to climate change and human activity in the Anthropocene, highlighting their remarkable capacity for survival and innovation. While fungal resilience offers reasons for optimism, significant obstacles, such as habitat loss, shifting symbiotic relationships, and emerging fungal pathogens, present challenges to plant, wildlife and human health. By examining these dynamics, we aim to shed light on the intricate interplay between fungi and a rapidly changing world.

The Botryosphaeriaceae in a changing world

In this talk, I will reflect on the transformation in our understanding of the Botryosphaeriaceae driven by advances in molecular ecology and evolution studies, and genomics. I will highlight emerging questions surrounding their interactions within microbiomes and with host organisms, as we seek new strategies to manage these widespread, often inconspicuous, and increasingly significant tree pathogens in a changing world.

Fungal Community Ecology

In natural and managed systems the importance of fungi has been overlooked or understudies compared to that of plants and bacteria. Recent community ecology research will be presented that addresses the importance of fungi in, for example, response of crop plants to drought stress, estimation of carbon storage in forests, and shaping bacterial community composition in grasslands.