Background During host colonization, fungal plant pathogens secrete effector-like proteins that alter host cell physiology and target plant-associated microbes. However, rapid evolution and low sequen...

To cause rice blast disease, the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae develops a specialised infection cell called an appressorium, which generates enormous turgor to breach the rice leaf cuticle. Al...

We’re delighted to celebrate Dr. Elizaveta Selezneva for successfully defending her PhD thesis! Congratulations Elizaveta - You did it! We wish you success and good wishes in your future endeavors! #...

Insects have evolved diverse strategies to protect their genome-reduced symbionts during vertical transmission. Here, authors show that tortoise beetles have co-opted a Yellow protein to form spheres ...

The hyphae-to-yeast morphological transition promotes dissemination of the pathogen Candida albicans, but the mechanisms underlying this process are poorly defined. By identifying a bacterial metaboli...

Transposable elements (TEs) are a highly diverse group of selfish genomic elements, prevalent across the tree of life, whose uncontrolled propagati...

Letter to the Editor

The mechanisms underlying the adaptation of lichens to nutrient-poor environments are poorly understood. Here, Happacher et al. show that a globally distributed lichen fungus produces an iron-scavengi...

SyeA was present in the Buchnera ancestor, is secreted into the host cytoplasm, is homologous to secreted effectors of bacterial pathogens and is essential for Buchnera transmission.

We publish reports that give our assessment of the current knowledge on the world's plants and fungi.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi form symbioses with ~70% of plant species, building hyphal networks that exchange nutrients for host-derived carbon. These tubular networks move ~1 billion metric tons of ...

Plants and animals respond to pathogen attack by mounting innate immune responses that require intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins. These immune receptors detect pathog...

Plants and animals respond to pathogen attack by mounting innate immune responses that require intracellular nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins. These immune receptors detect pathog...

I give an account of an undescribed ant species from Arizona that licks and nips the much larger workers of a different ant species in manner remarkably parallel to the actions of cleaner fish that c...

Anaerobic single-celled eukaryotes illustrate the remarkable diversity of adaptations to life without oxygen, including multiple mitochondrial reductions and various symbiotic interactions with prokar...

Symbiotic bacteria can have exceedingly small genomes. This study finds that ancient bacterial symbionts of planthoppers have repeatedly evolved the smallest known genomes, losing most biosynthetic fu...

Increasing evidence suggests that lichens are not just a partnership between one fungus and one alga or cyanobacterium but may contain multiple intera…

Xu et al. demonstrate that diverse bacteria trap the carbon repressor CreA in the nucleus, thereby suppressing pathogenesis-related gene expression. This reveals a conserved bacterial strategy that ex...

Herbivorous insects can shape the epidemiology of disease in plants by vectoring numerous phytopathogens. While the consequences of infection are often well-characterized in the host plant, the extent...

Romeijn et al. reveal that horizontal transposon transfer is widespread in fungi, contributing up to 70% of transposon content in some taxa. The authors uncover thousands of events across diverse line...

Mushroom-forming fungi have along evolutionary history and a suite of important ecological roles. This Review highlights advances in understanding of Agaricomycetes evolution and ecology driven by gen...

In this study, the authors analysed a large genomic dataset to trace how jumping genes shaped the global spread of a major wheat pathogen and reveal bursts of activity over decades that drove adaptati...