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The article introduces the topic on single women and global feminism. A protagonist in J.M Coetzee's "In the Heart of the Country," Madga lives her days on an isolated sheep farm with loneliness. With no prospects for marriage, Magda cannot fulfill the roles of wife and mother expected of women in the South African farm culture. Though dismissed as a useless member of the farm community, She has seen the transgressive potential in the single woman's body that she inhabits.

The population structure and evolution of basidiomycetes like rust fungi are influenced by complex reproductive cycles and dikaryotic life stages where two independent nuclear haplotypes are present in the cell. The ability to alternate between asexual (clonal) and sexual reproduction increases the evolutionary capacity in these species. Furthermore, exchange of intact nuclei (somatic hybridization) in rust fungi can allow for rapid generation of genetic variability outside of the sexual cycle. Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae (Pca), the causal agent of oat crown rust, is a pathogen of global economic importance that is difficult to control due to rapid breakdown of host genetic resistance. The contribution of sexuality, clonality, and migration to virulence evolution varies across Pca populations. As such, the Pca pathosystem is ideal to address the role of mating type, recombination, mutation, and somatic hybridization in host adaptation. We expanded the existing resources for USA and South African populations by generating whole genome sequencing data of Taiwanese and Australian isolates. An atlas of 30 chromosome-level, fully-phased nuclear haplotypes from six USA isolates and nine Australian isolates was created to capture the genomic composition of key Pca lineages. At the haplotype level, we confirmed previous reports of genetic recombination in the USA population and additionally detected either sexual or cryptic recombination between Australian isolates, contrasting previous evaluations that suggested Pca populations in Australia to be purely clonal. We also identified somatic hybridization events in Pca that are not only associated with significant changes in fitness but also imply intercontinental migration of haplotypes, which provides further impetus for molecular monitoring of rust pathogen populations on a global scale., Competing Interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: KL, HM, MS, and IL are employees of Phase Genomics, a company commercializing proximity ligation sequencing technology., (Copyright: This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.)