Navigating the Fusarium species complex: Host-range plasticity and genome variations

The Ascomycete genus Fusarium first introduced by Link in 1809 currently consists of 431 species and 3,558 unclassified isolates and hybrids (according to NCBI Taxonomy lists). Collectively, these fungi have diverse lifestyles and infection cycles exploiting a wide range of environments and hosts, ecological niches, and nutrient sources. Here, we carried out a pan-Fusarium review of species and describe and explore the glamorous, and the less attractive niches exploited by pathogenic and endophytic species that infect plant, human, animal and /or invertebrate hosts, through to those of the free-living non-pathogenic species dwelling in land, air or water-based natural ecosystems, to those species that exploit human-modified environments or are cultivated in industrial production systems. Fully sequenced, assembled and annotated reference genomes are already available for 189 Fusarium species, many at chromosome scale. In addition, for some of the world’s most important species extensive single species pangenomes or closely related formae speciales genome clusters are readily available. Previous comparative genomics studies have focussed on taxonomically restricted clusters of Fusarium species. We now investigate potential new relationships between these vastly contrasting Fusarium biologies, niches and environmental occupancies and the evolution of their respective genomes.