Our investigations deal with biodiversity and ecology of Saprolegnia spp and related Oomycetes. For this purpose, we have first assessed a reliable taxonomy of this genus based on:

(1) a broad Saprolegnia culture collection that comprises the majority of species of Saprolegnia from a worldwide as well as from a wide range of hosts, environments and ecological niches. This has allowed us to characterize all species morphologically, physiologically, and molecularly. The collection also possesses isolates that belong to other oomycetes genera such as Achlya, Aphanomyces, Dyctiuchus, Lagenidium, Leptolegnia, Protoachlya, Pythium, Pytophthora.

(2) the application of a DNA sequence analyses techniques that allows the delimitation of molecular taxonomic units MOTU representing species and their evolutionary relationships.

A phylogeny of the fully characterized strains has been performed to facilitate the identification of groups and of isolates as well as virulence factors involved in Saprolegniosis. The MOTU system is efficiently allowing us to investigate the biodiversity and species composition seasonal dynamics of Saprolegnia in different environments, habitats, and biogeographic regions. The effect of environmental parameters that influence the distribution, dispersion, and virulence of Saprolegnia (e.g., temperature, pH, oxygen, salinity, etc.) can then be more easily investigated. The data is being correlated to original strain distribution and origin by using statistic and modeling programs.