bioRxiv preprint doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.06.02.129296; this version posted June 3, 2020. The copyright holder for this preprint (which was not certified by peer review) is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under aCC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license. 1 ECOLOGICAL DIFFERENTIATION AND INCIPIENT SPECIATION IN THE FUNGAL PATHOGEN CAUSING 2 RICE BLAST 3 Maud THIERRY1,2,3, Joëlle MILAZZO1,2, Henri ADREIT1,2, Sébastien RAVEL1,2,4, Sonia BORRON1, Violaine 4 SELLA3, Renaud IOOS3, Elisabeth FOURNIER1, Didier THARREAU1,2,5, Pierre GLADIEUX1,5 5 1UMR BGPI, Université de Montpellier, INRAE, CIRAD, Institut Agro, F-34398 Montpellier, France 6 2 CIRAD, UMR BGPI, F-34398 Montpellier, France. 7 3ANSES Plant Health Laboratory, Mycology Unit, Domaine de Pixérécourt, Bâtiment E, F-54220 Malzéville, France 8 4 South Green Bioinformatics Platform, Alliance Bioversity-international CIAT, CIRAD, INRAE, IRD, Montpellier, 9 France. 10
[email protected];
[email protected] 11 12 ABSTRACT 13 Natural variation in plant pathogens has an impact on food security and ecosystem health. The rice 14 blast fungus Pyricularia oryzae, which limits rice production in all rice-growing areas, is structured into 15 multiple lineages. Diversification and the maintenance of multiple rice blast lineages have been 16 proposed to be due to separation in different areas and differential adaptation to rice subspecies. 17 However, the precise world distribution of rice blast populations, and the factors controlling their 18 presence and maintenance in the same geographic areas, remain largely unknown.