title: 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 et al. ), Saccharomyces uvarum (Almeida et al. ), Coccidioides spp. (Neafsey et al. ) and Cryptococcus gatti (Engelthaler et al. ). In this issue of Molecular Ecology, Branco et al. () 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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biosciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Inger
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Skrede
authors.affiliation: Department of Forest Mycology and Plant Pathology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brandström Durling
mesh_terms: D001487:Basidiomycota / Q000235:genetics*; D049810:Genetic Speciation; D005828:Genetics, Population; D060047:Reproductive Isolation
keywords: functional adaptation; fungi; population divergence; population genomics