WenWen Li presented her Prestige Seminar “Distribution, biology and diversity of Calonectria species on Eucalyptus in southern China” on 15 August as part of the requirements to complete her PhD degree. This was the second PhD completed this year by one of the team making up the RIFT (Research Institute of Fast Growing Trees)/FABI partnership. Her PhD was completed under the supervision of Prof. Tuan Duong, Prof. Mike Wingfield, Prof. ShuaiFei Chen and Dr FeiFei Liu. Her external examiners were Prof. Marc Cubeta of NC State University, USA, and Prof. Conrad Schoch of the National Institutes of Health, USA. FABI Director with Prof. Bernard Slippers as the, internal examiner.

Tuan praised WenWen for her positive attitude towards research and said that she was always up for a challenge and produced beautiful work with little or no assistance. He also complemented her on outstanding PhD research, focusing on the biology, diversity, and genomics of Calonectria. He further noted that she had already published two research papers from her PhD, with a third currently under review and several more in the pipeline.

Eucalyptus is the most important commercially planted tree species in China and Calonectria leaf blight is a serious disease of these trees in southern China. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive understanding regarding species responsible for these disease outbreaks. To clarify the species diversity and distribution of Calonectria in Eucalyptus plantations in Guangdong Province, WenWen carried out extensive disease surveys in eight regions with many isolates being collected from diseased leaves and the soils beneath the Eucalyptus trees. These samples were studied at various levels including population genetics, population genomic and systems ecology.

WenWen will continue as a Postdoc at FABI, working on comparative genomics and functional genetics of fungal pathogens in the Ceratocystidaceae.