Plant Pathology Faculty

Erica Goss

RESEARCH

My research is on the origins, evolution, population structure, and migration of plant pathogens. I am also interested in the molecular evolution of virulence and host range as relates to the emergence of new pathogens. My focus is on the genus Phytophthora, which includes a number of emerging plant pathogens.

Phytophthora are Oomycetes, which share life history characteristics with fungi but are members of a distinct lineage of eukaryotes with diatoms and brown algae. They are responsible for some of the most economically and ecologically destructive plant diseases. Since the discovery of P. ramorum as the causal agent of sudden oak death in northern California in the late 1990s, the number of Phytophthora species has more than doubled as a result of monitoring efforts. But little is known about the origin, distribution, or host range of these new Phytophthora species, and it is not known how many other potentially damaging Phytophthora remain undiscovered. In my lab, we study both Phytophthora pathogens of agricultural crops and forest trees.

I teach the graduate course PLP6621 Applied Population Genetics of Microbes every other year and ALS3923 CALS Honors Orientation, which prepares undergraduates in the College to write a thesis on independent research.

RESEARCH POSITIONS

Research Biologist (Postdoctoral), USDA ARS, Corvallis, OR, 2006 to 2010.
Graduate Fellow, Ecology and Evolution, The University of Chicago, 1999 to 2005.
Summer Research Assistant, The Harvard Forest, Harvard University, 1998.
Plant Ecology Intern, Archbold Biological Station, 1997.
Summer Research Assistant, Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, 1995.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Grünwald NJ and EM Goss (2011) Evolution and Population Genetics of Exotic and Reemerging Pathogens: Novel Tools and Approaches. Annual Review of Plant Pathology, in press.
• Goss, EM, MM Larsen, A Vercauteren, S Werres, K Heungens, and NJ Grünwald (2011) Phytophthora ramorum in Canada: Evidence for migration within North America and from Europe. Phytopathology, in press.
• Goss, EM, MM Larsen, GA Chastagner, DR Givens, and NJ Grünwald (2009) Population genetic analysis infers migration pathways of Phytophthora ramorum in US nurseries. PLoS Pathogens 5: e1000583.
• Grünwald NJ, EM Goss, et al. (2009) Standardizing the nomenclature for clonal lineages of the sudden oak death pathogen, Phytophthora ramorum, Phytopathology 99:792-795.
• Goss, EM, I Carbone, NJ Grünwald (2009) Ancient isolation and independent evolution of the three clonal lineages of the exotic sudden oak death pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, Molecular Ecology 18: 1161-1174.
• Grünwald, NJ, EM Goss, and CM Press (2008) Phytophthora ramorum: a pathogen with a remarkably wide host-range causing sudden oak death on oaks and ramorum blight on woody ornamentals, Molecular Plant Pathology 9: 729-740.
• Grünwald NJ, M Kitner, V McDonald, and EM Goss (2008) Susceptibility in Viburnum to Phytophthora ramorum, Plant Disease 92: 210-214.
• Goss, EM and J Bergelson (2007) Fitness consequences of infection of Arabidopsis thaliana with its natural bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas viridiflava, Oecologia 152: 71-81.
• Goss, EM and J Bergelson (2006) Variation in resistance and virulence in the interaction between Arabidopsis thaliana and a bacterial pathogen, Evolution 60:1562–1573.
• Araki, H, D Tian, EM Goss, K Jakob, S. S. Hallsdorsdottir, M Kreitman and J Bergelson (2006) Balancing selection on two pathogenicity islands in a pathogen of Arabidopsis, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103:5887-5892.