FUNGADAPT

Studying adaptive divergence, a key process in evolutionary biology, is essential for understanding the adaptation of organisms to their environment and how biodiversity arises. Domestication is a good model for studying adaptive divergence, as it involves strong and recent selection for known traits. Domesticated fungi used for fermented food have been rarely studied while they constitute highly tractable eukaryotic models, with repeated and recent adaptation events to the same environment. The Fungadapt project aims at elucidating the domestication history and the genomic mechanisms of adaptation, and their repeatability, in emblematic Penicillium fungi used for cheese and dry-cured meat production by assessing their genetic and phenotypic diversity as well as differentiation, by identifying footprints of selection in genomes and by deciphering the genomic determinants of adaptive traits. Methodological approaches include high-throughput phenotyping, comparative and population genomics, QTL mapping and functional validation.