Aphanomyces astaci causes crayfish plague, a disease responsible for the decline and extinction of native freshwater crayfish populations in Switzerland and Europe. Because of the severe effects on wild populations, the disease is listed as reportable disease in Switzerland, as well as by the WOAH. Not all strains of A. astaci are equally lethal to European crayfish. Five genotypes (termed A, B, C, D and E) are described for A. astaci, which show different virulence in native European crayfish populations.
During this project we perform comparative genomics of all five genotypes to identify genome differences indicating possible reasns for the various phenotypes.
Contact: Heike Schmidt-Posthaus, Simone Oberhänsli, Simone Pisano
