03766naa a2200265 a 450000100080000000500110000800800410001902200140006002400360007410000170011024502010012726000090032850010650033752018470140265300230324965300180327270000170329070000160330770000190332370000170334270000180335970000220337770000150339977300860341410645012024-03-11       2024    bl uuuu     u00u1 u    #d  a0031-949X7 a10.1094/PHYTO-01-23-0025-R2DOI1 aFARMAN, M.L.  aA reevaluation of phylogenomic data reveals that current understanding in wheat blast population biology and epidemiology is obfuscated by oversights in population sampling.h[electronic resource]  c2024  aArticle history: Accepted for publication 10 July 2023; Published online 23 December 2023. -- Corresponding author: M. L. Farman; farman@uky.edu . -- Document type: Article Green Open Access. -- Funding:Support was provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (grant 2013-68004-20378,  multistate project NE1602); Agricultural Research Service (project 8044-22000-046-00D and Hatchproject  KY012037);  the National Science  Foundation (grant MCB-1716491); the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and the Environment; Fundaçãode Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (grant APQ-03072-18 to E. M. DelPonte); Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (PROEX);and National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) (grant310208/2019-0). E. M. Del Ponte was supported by CNPq through a Productivity Research Fellowship (project 310208/2019-0). J. P. Ascari was supported by CNPq through a doctoral scholarship. -- Supplementary material is available online:  aABSTRACT.- Wheat blast, caused by the Pyricularia oryzae Triticum lineage (PoT), first emerged in Brazil and quickly spread to neighboring countries. Its recent appearance in Bangladesh and Zambia highlights a need to understand the disease's population biology and epidemiology so as to mitigate pandemic outbreaks. Current knowledge is mostly based on characterizations of Brazilian wheat blast isolates and comparison with isolates from non-wheat, endemic grasses. These foregoing studies concluded that the wheat blast population lacks host specificity and, as a result, undergoes extensive gene flow with populations infecting non-wheat hosts. Additionally, based on genetic similarity between wheat blast and isolates infecting Urochloa species, it was proposed that the disease originally emerged via a host jump from this grass and that Urochloa likely plays a central role in wheat blast epidemiology owing to its widespread use as a pasture grass. However, due to inconsistencies with broader phylogenetic studies, we suspected that these seminal studies had not actually sampled the populations normally found on endemic grasses and, instead, had repeatedly isolated members of PoT and the related Lolium pathogen lineage (PoL1). Re-analysis of the Brazilian data as part of a comprehensive, global, phylogenomic dataset that included a small number of South American isolates sampled away from wheat confirmed our suspicion and identified four new P. oryzae lineages on grass hosts. As a result, the conclusions underpinning current understanding in wheat blast's evolution, population biology, and epidemiology are unsubstantiated and could be equivocal. @ This article is in the public domain and not copyrightable. It may be freely reprinted with customary crediting of the source. The American Phytopathological Society, 2023.  aMagnaporthe oryzae  aPhylogenetics1 aASCARI, J.P.1 aRAHNAMA, M.1 aPONTE, E.M DEL1 aPEDLEY, K.F.1 aMARTÍNEZ, S.1 aFERNANDES, J.M.C.1 aVALENT, B.  tPhytopathology. 2024, 114(1): 220-225. https://doi.org/10.1094/PHYTO-01-23-0025-R