Speaker
Cécile Lorrain
ETH Zürich, Switzerland
My general research interest is to study the evolutionary ecology of plant pathogenic fungi using multidisciplinary approaches. I am particularly curious to unravel how antagonistic interactions shape rapid evolution of plant-pathogens and how species maintain their evolutionary potential in human-managed environments. I employ a combination of genomics, phenomics and experimental evolution approaches to better understand the molecular basis of adaptation in plant pathogens. I am working mainly with the fungal wheat pathogen Zymoseptoria tritici causing the Septoria tritici blotch disease that damages wheat crops worldwide. Z. tritici populations harbor all of the characteristics that facilitate rapid adaptation, including large effective population sizes, short generation times, high mutation rates and extensive gene flow among populations. I am studying how Z. tritici populations respond to fluctuating environmental conditions including deployment of resistant host cultivars and the application of fungicides across different spatial and temporal scales.