Population genomic analyses reveal possible drivers of population divergence.

Abstract

Recent advances in sequencing technology and efficiency enable new and improved methods to investigate how populations diverge and species evolve. Fungi have relatively small and simple genomes and can often be cultured in the laboratory. Fungal populations can thus be sequenced for a relatively low cost, which makes them ideal for population genomic analyses. In several recent population genomic studies, wild populations of fungal model organisms and human pathogens have been analysed, for example Neurospora crassa (Ellison etal. ), Saccharomyces uvarum (Almeida etal. ), Coccidioides spp. (Neafsey etal. ) and Cryptococcus gatti (Engelthaler etal. ). In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Branco etal. () apply population genomic tools to understand population divergence and adaptation in a symbiotic (mycorrhizal) fungus. This study exemplifies the possibilities of diving deeper into the genomic features involved in population divergence and speciation, also for nonmodel organisms, and how molecular and analytical tools will improve our understanding of the patterns and mechanisms that underlie adaptation to habitats, population divergence and dispersal limitation of fungi.