38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology

Let us assume that a complete genomic sequence of Beauveria bassiana or Metarhizium anisopliae will be available in the near future. Which fungus will or should be the sequenced first? Which isolate should be chosen? Once one of these fungi is sequenced, some major questions need to be asked: Which fungi should be next and why? Which NONentomopathogenic fungi need sequencing to provide appropriate standards to evaluate the entomopathogen’s genes? Innumerable such specific questions arise. And questions must also be raised about what will be done with the information gained from such sequences. Other speakers in this symposium address some of these questions, but it is also time to ask some very BIG questions that might help to unlock greater understandings of the systematics, phylogeny, ecology, and overall organismal and population population of these fungi. Now that the complete life histories of Beauveria, Metarhizium, and other clavicipitaceous entomopathogens are better understood, it will be time to push boldly towards an integration of our understandings of these fungi, their roles in the environment, and how they operate throughout their life history in a manner wholly unanticipated only a few short years ago.