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Chinese president JinTao Hu visits University of Pretoria. |
Chinese State Counsellor (former Minister of Education) Madam ZiLi Chen visits FABI. |
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| Prof. Mike Wingfield meets and competes with rector XiaoYan Chen (South China Agricultural University). | Mr. YangGen Wei (head of education division of Chinese embassy in SA) meets rector Prof. Calie Pistorius (University of Pretoria), and Dr. XuDong Zhou. |
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| CFEPP team (from left to right): JiaGuang Cao, XuDong Zhou, Mike Wingfield, ShuaiFei Chen, and ShiChao Zhang. | Canker found on Eucalyptus grandis in China caused by the destructive pathogen Kirramyces zuluense. This pathogen was first found and described in South Africa and is now known to have a wide distribution in Eucalypt-growing parts of the world. |
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| Quambalaria leaf blight found on Corymbia citriodora in China. Discovery of the pathogen Quambalaria pitereka in China marks its first detection outside Australia, where it is believed to be native. | Phaeophleospora destructans found on Eucalyptus hybrids in China. This is one of the most destructive leaf and shoot blight pathogens of Eucalyptus, first found in North Sumatra and now having spread throughout SE Asia. |
FABI News
21 Feb 2019
Chinese student delegation visits FABI
FABI welcomed a student delegation from the Tsinghua University in Beijing on 20 February.
15 Feb 2019
CFTPP research leader visits FABI
11 Feb 2019
FABIans strengthening collaboration between France and South Africa
The French Embassy organised a meeting of French academics working in South Africa on 8 February. This meeting aimed to connect French researchers from various fields and promote the expertise and innovation between the two countries.
5 Feb 2019
TPCP field extension services boosted by the appointment of Dr Trudy Paap
FABI is pleased to announce that Dr Trudy Paap has been appointed with effect from February to manage the field extension services of the Tree Protection Co-operative programme (TPCP), as well as to support the development of a national pest and disease monitoring and management system that links TPCP, Institute for Commercial Forestry Research (ICFR), Industry and Government resources.
1 Feb 2019
FABIans celebrate two prestige seminars in as many days
FeiFei Liu successfully defended her PhD thesis on 29 January, becoming the second FABIan this year to earn the title “Dr”. This after she presented her prestige seminar, titled “Species diversity and host associations of plant pathogenic Ceratocystis species in China”.
Research Features
The use of genome data to characterize species and elucidate relationships, particularly between problematic taxa, has become routine practice in bacteria. Recently, researchers from FABI joined in an international effort to describe two novel genera and characterize these within the larger context of the important bacterial group Burkholderia.
A PhD student in FABI, Runlei Chang, has discovered and described 19 new fungal species from China as part of the research for his thesis. These fungi are all associated with conifer-infesting bark beetles and their mites and belong to well-known genera such as Ophiostoma and Leptographium.
Two research papers from FABI were selected as cover stories in two consecutive issues of the international journal, Plant Pathology. The journal is published by Wiley for the British Society of Plant Pathology.
Plastids play an integral role in wood formation, and yet they are routinely ignored in the study of xylogenesis in forest trees. Desre Pinard and Dr Eshchar Mizrachi have published a review highlighting the unique biology of plastids in wood, suggesting that a new type of plastid, the xylopast, exists.
Approaches for characterizing metabolic potential from genomic sequences have previously been predicted to be useful in the description of bacterial taxa. Dr Marike Palmer, has recently employed these approaches for identifying biological processes contributing to the divergence of bacteria with a variety of lifestyles.
Comparative genomics is shaping our notion of what fungal species are. Based on current data, these unique evolutionary units are separated from one another by boundaries that are porous under certain conditions. This affects our expectations regarding their population biology and evolution, and our strategies for recognizing and controlling them.
An aggressive ambrosia beetle and its fungal symbiont that has the potential to kill many tree species, were recently discovered in South Africa. This pest was detected on London Plane trees in the KwaZulu-Natal National Botanical Gardens, Pietermaritzburg. It has since been confirmed in Durban, Hartswater, Bloemfontein, George, Knysna and Johannesburg.
Workshops & Symposia
1-5 October 2018
5-9 Nov 2018
Advanced Phylogenetics
Workshop 1
2018
New Publications
van der Nest MA, Wingfield MJ, McTaggart AR, Van Wyk S, De Vos L, Trollip C, Santana QC, Naidoo K, Dong TA, Wilken PM, Chan W-Y, Palmer M, Soal NA, Roodt D, Steenkamp ET, Wingfield BD. (2019) Genomic analysis of the aggressive tree pathogen Ceratocystis albifundus. Fungal Biology
10.1016/j.funbio.2019.02.002 
Zlatkovic M, Wingfield MJ, Jami F, Slippers B. (2019) Genetic uniformity characterizes the invasive spread of Neofusicoccum parvum and Diplodia sapinea in the Western Balkans. Forest Pathology 49:e12491.
10.1111/efp.12491
Zumaquero A, Martinez-Ferri E, Matas AJ, Reeksting B, Olivier NA, Pliego-Alfaro F, Barcelo A, van den Berg N, Pliego C. (2019) Rosellinia necatrix infection induces differential gene expression between tolerant and susceptible avocado rootstocks. PLoS ONE 14(2):e0212359.
10.1371/journal.pone.0212359
Backer R, Naidoo S, van den Berg N. (2019) The NONEXPRESSOR OF PATHOGENESIS-RELATED GENES 1 (NPR1) and Related Family: Mechanistic Insights in Plant Disease Resistance. Frontiers in Plant Science 10:102.
10.3389/fpls.2019.00102
Pinard D, Myburg AA, Mizrachi E. (2019) The plastid and mitochondrial genomes of Eucalyptus grandis. BMC Genomics 20(132):1-14.
10.1186/s12864-019-5444-4