title: Long-distance gene flow outweighs a century of local selection and prevents local adaptation in the Irish famine pathogen Phytophthora infestans.
abstract: Sustainably managing plant resistance to epidemic pathogens implies controlling the genetic and demographic changes in pathogen populations faced with resistant hosts. Resistance management thus depends upon the dynamics of local adaptation, mainly driven by the balance between selection and gene flow. This dynamics is best investigated with populations from locally dominant hosts in islands with long histories of local selection. We used the unique case of the potato late blight pathosystem on Jersey, where a monoculture of potato cultivar 'Jersey Royal' has been in place for over a century. We also sampled populations from the coasts of Brittany and Normandy, as likely sources for gene flow. The isolation by distance pattern and the absence of genetic differentiation between Jersey and the closest French sites revealed gene flow at that spatial scale. Microsatellite allele frequencies revealed no evidence of recombination in the populations, but admixture of two genotypic clusters. No local adaptation in Jersey was detected from pathogenicity tests on Jersey Royal and on French cultivars. These data suggest that long-distance gene flow (∼ 50/100 km) prevents local adaptation in Jersey despite a century of local selection by a single host cultivar and emphasize the need for regional rather than local management of resistance gene deployment.
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Isabelle
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Glais
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Josselin
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Montarry
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Roselyne
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Corbière
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Claudine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Pasco
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Marquer
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France ; Laboratory of Marine Ecology, University of La Réunion St Denis Messag Cedex 09, La Réunion, F-97715, France.
authors.forename: Hélène
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Magalon
authors.affiliation: INRA, UMR1349 IGEPP (Institute of Genetics, Environment and Plant Protection) Le Rheu, France.
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Andrivon
keywords: clonal lineage; evolution; gene flow; host resistance; local adaptation; microsatellites; potato late blight; selection