Emile Gluck-Thaler

Fungi are the primary agents of plant disease and mutualism, thus representing both threats and opportunities for grower incomes and global food security. Yet mitigating the harm of pathogens and maximizing the benefit of mutualists is challenging because many of the mechanisms underlying fungal evolution are poorly understood. Our goal is to investigate the genetic causes and ecological consequences of adaptation in plant-fungal interactions by integrating molecular genetics with evolutionary genomics and big data. A major focus of the lab is to understand how changes in genome structure impact phenotypic variation, for example, how the activity of giant mobile elements facilitates pathogen emergence.