Mapping the adaptive landscape of a major agricultural pathogen reveals evolutionary constraints across heterogeneous environments

Open access
Author
Show all
Date
2021-05Type
- Journal Article
Citations
Cited 10 times in
Web of Science
Cited 9 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics
Abstract
The adaptive potential of pathogens in novel or heterogeneous environments underpins the risk of disease epidemics. Antagonistic pleiotropy or differential resource allocation among life-history traits can constrain pathogen adaptation. However, we lack understanding of how the genetic architecture of individual traits can generate trade-offs. Here, we report a large-scale study based on 145 global strains of the fungal wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici from four continents. We measured 50 life-history traits, including virulence and reproduction on 12 different wheat hosts and growth responses to several abiotic stressors. To elucidate the genetic basis of adaptation, we used genome-wide association mapping coupled with genetic correlation analyses. We show that most traits are governed by polygenic architectures and are highly heritable suggesting that adaptation proceeds mainly through allele frequency shifts at many loci. We identified negative genetic correlations among traits related to host colonization and survival in stressful environments. Such genetic constraints indicate that pleiotropic effects could limit the pathogen's ability to cause host damage. In contrast, adaptation to abiotic stress factors was likely facilitated by synergistic pleiotropy. Our study illustrates how comprehensive mapping of life-history trait architectures across diverse environments allows to predict evolutionary trajectories of pathogens confronted with environmental perturbations. Show more
Permanent link
https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000467406Publication status
publishedExternal links
Journal / series
The ISME JournalVolume
Pages / Article No.
Publisher
LondonSubject
Fungi; Molecular evolution; Plant sciences; Population geneticsOrganisational unit
03516 - McDonald, Bruce / McDonald, Bruce
More
Show all metadata
Citations
Cited 10 times in
Web of Science
Cited 9 times in
Scopus
ETH Bibliography
yes
Altmetrics