Arrival of Ulysse Guillotteau and Alicia Culot

Ulysse Guillotteau's PhD project aims to identify the combinations of genetic factors determining host species specificity in Z. tritici (Septoria leaf blotch) and in wheat, and to determine whether some of these genetic factors are also involved in adaptation to varieties within the same host species. The project will be divided into three tasks concerning the structuration of genetic diversity of Z. tritici towards its original host species, the identification of the genetic factors from Z. tritici involved in durum or bread wheat specialization, and the genetic architecture of bread wheat resistance to Z. tritici isolates specialized on durum wheat.

Alicia Culot's PhD project aims to analyze the risk of reemergence of wheat stem rust in France, focusing on the survival, dispersal, and recurrence processes of Puccinia graminis f. sp. tritici at the interface between cultivated and natural environments. This research will be structured around two non-exclusive explanatory hypotheses: a local origin of the inoculum (established presence of the disease with pathogen survival on alternative host plants) and a distant origin of the inoculum (long-distance spore dispersal by air currents from southern Europe).