Phylogeny and evolution of plant pathogenic oomycetes-a global overview

Oomycetes have colonised all continents and oceans in a great variety of habitats and are arguably one of the most successful eukaryotic lineages. This is contrasted by the limited knowledge available for this group in various fields in comparison to other ubiquitous eukaryotes, such as unikont fungi, animals or plants. In this review an overview is given on the evolution and diversification of the oomycetes, with focus on the plant parasitic lineages and aspects of wild pathosystems.