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The document provides a detailed report on the Economic and Social History Society of Ireland's activities in 2023, including the officers, journal updates, and the annual conference held at University College Dublin. It lists the papers presented at the conference, covering a wide range of topics from taxation and state-building to female bank workers and LGBTQ+ emigrant experiences. The report highlights the society's commitment to exploring diverse aspects of Irish economic and social history, acknowledging the 50th anniversary of the society and journal in upcoming volumes. [Extracted from the article]

How does pre-war trauma impact battlefield behaviour? I study Irish troops in the American Civil War who experienced the Potato Famine over a decade prior. I use birth cohorts, sibling birth order, adult height, and the geography of last names in Ireland to measure famine exposure within the Irish group at the level of individual soldiers. Each strategy indicates that famine exposure increases desertion. Developing and testing observable implications from theory, I show that heightened risk aversion is the most plausible mechanism. Once soldiers are socialized into active combat through collective risk-sharing the famine effect dissipates. This research contributes to our understanding of the causes of contentious behaviour, how the behavioural legacies of atrocities play-out sans partisanship, and the importance of pre-migration experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The real‐time use of drone‐derived orthoimagery and ground‐penetrating radar (GPR) facilitate conjunctive ground surveying and aerial visual reference of subterranean features within cemeteries. Geospatially referenced visual outputs allow sympathetic restoration and assist in understanding historical use. Two contrasting case studies demonstrate this: The first is a subterranean wall, built to separate Catholic and Protestant burials in a civic cemetery. The second example is the accurate positioning of unmarked inhumations in an Irish Famine burial ground, which facilitated preservation as a memorial garden in a hospital complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores Bret Harte's poem "Plain Language from Truthful James" and its examination of religious and racial dynamics in the post-Civil War West. The poem satirically addresses anti-Chinese racism through the character of Ah Sin, but also highlights the othering of Irish Catholics. The article argues that Harte's portrayal of anti-Chinese racism falls short in speaking truthfully about Chinese laborers, and challenges traditional forms of white supremacy in California. It delves into the history of American religion, anxieties over heathenism, and the economic competition and racial tensions between Irish Catholics and Chinese immigrants in California. The text also discusses the racial and religious dynamics between Irish Americans and Chinese immigrants in the mid-19th century United States, highlighting discrimination faced by the Irish and the participation of Irish Catholics in anti-Chinese sentiments. The author argues that Harte's poem critiques this discrimination and promotes religious and racial tolerance. However, the poem's satirical style and semantic imprecision led to misinterpretations that reinforced anti-Chinese racism and contributed to the support for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. [Extracted from the article]

Phytophthora infestans is a major oomycete plant pathogen, responsible for potato late blight, which led to the Irish Potato Famine from 1845–1852. Since then, potatoes resistant to this disease have been bred and deployed worldwide. Their resistance (R) genes recognize pathogen effectors responsible for virulence and then induce a plant response stopping disease progression. However, most deployed R genes are quickly overcome by the pathogen. We use targeted sequencing of effector and R genes on herbarium specimens to examine the joint evolution in both P. infestans and potato from 1845–1954. Currently relevant effectors are historically present in P. infestans, but with alternative alleles compared to modern reference genomes. The historic FAM-1 lineage has the virulent Avr1 allele and the ability to break the R1 resistance gene before breeders deployed it in potato. The FAM-1 lineage is diploid, but later, triploid US-1 lineages appear. We show that pathogen virulence genes and host resistance genes have undergone significant changes since the Famine, from both natural and artificial selection. The joint evolution in Phytophthora infestans and potato over a one hundred period since the Famine is examined based on targeting sequencing of pathogen effector genes and host resistance genes from historic outbreak samples present in plant herbaria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum) is a major crop worldwide. It occupies the second place after cereals (corn, rice, and wheat). This important crop is threatened by the Oomycete Phytophthora infestans, the agent of late blight disease. This pathogen was first encountered during the Irish famine during the 1840s and is a reemerging threat to potatoes. It is mainly controlled chemically by using fungicides, but due to health and environmental concerns, the best alternative is resistance. When there is no disease, no treatment is required. In this study, we present a summary of the ongoing efforts concerning resistance breeding of potato against this devastating pathogen, P. infestans. This work begins with the search for and selection of resistance genes, whether they are from within or from outside the species. The genetic methods developed to date for gene mining, such as effectoromics and GWAS, provide researchers with the ability to identify genes of interest more efficiently. Once identified, these genes are cloned using molecular markers (MAS or QRL) and can then be introduced into different cultivars using somatic hybridization or recombinant DNA technology. More innovative technologies have been developed lately, such as gene editing using the CRISPR system or gene silencing, by exploiting iRNA strategies that have emerged as promising tools for managing Phytophthora infestans, which can be employed. Also, gene pyramiding or gene stacking, which involves the accumulation of two or more R genes on the same individual plant, is an innovative method that has yielded many promising results. All these advances related to the development of molecular techniques for obtaining new potato cultivars resistant to P. infestans can contribute not only to reducing losses in agriculture but especially to ensuring food security and safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an overview of the 1847 financial crisis and the Irish famine, with a focus on the response of the Whig government led by Lord John Russell. The potato blight in Ireland resulted in a devastating famine, causing widespread hunger, disease, and death. The government's relief efforts, which included public works projects and the Irish Poor Law, were ineffective in addressing the crisis. The article also examines the economic theories and political decisions that influenced the government's response. Funding for relief measures came from both Poor Law unions and the central government, with soup kitchens being used as a temporary solution to provide food. Initially, the government planned to use loans for famine relief, but financial crises forced them to abandon this approach. The failure of the government's policies resulted in high taxes in Ireland and a collapse of the rural economy. The article dismisses claims that the response to the famine was racially motivated, attributing the government's failure to incompetence rather than intention. Additionally, the text draws parallels between the budget crises of 1847 and modern-day financial crises. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of ABEI Journal: The Brazilian Journal of Irish Studies is the property of Associacao Brasileira de Estudos Irlandeses and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The Great Finnish Famine of 1695–1697 was one of the worst famines in European history; it claimed the lives of a fourth to a third of the Finnish people in one year. Unlike the better-known Irish Famine, the Great Finnish Famine remains largely unknown outside of Finland. It was a catastrophic episode in Finnish history and has been the inspiration for Finnish metal bands: Hiidenhauta's 2018 album 1695 and Insomnium's 2023 album Anno 1696. Both albums take the famine as their main theme but do so in different ways. Anno 1696 further incorporates witch hunts that took place in the seventeenth century. This article explores and compares how historical events are depicted in the bands' music and how their lyrical themes fit into a wider metal scene. Hiidenhauta favors an approach to historic events based on a small selection of (academic) sources. In contrast, Insomnium takes a freer attitude toward source material, incorporating aspects found in other metal lyrics or in popular culture more generally. The latter approach is termed "metallization," in which a band embellishes historic narratives by including aspects often found in metal music lyrics, such as hypermasculinity, violence, and gore. The analysis suggests that the different approaches by the bands are connected to the languages in which the bands sing: Hiidenhauta sings in Finnish whereas Insomnium uses English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on the Irish Famine, this essay argues that Israel's enforced starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza during the 2023–24 genocide is a deliberate act that advances the settler-colonial aspirations of the Zionist regime. In addition to preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid into Gaza, the author argues that manufacturing food insecurity is part of a long-standing Israeli policy in the besieged enclave, which includes targeting essential infrastructure and other elements of food production. The essay ends with a call on political representatives in both Ireland and the United States to reflect on their own legacy of colonially enforced starvation and to intervene to bring an end to the looming famine in Gaza. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Oomycete Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary, 1876 is the most devastating pathogen on potato crop. It was an agent responsible for the Irish Famine in the 1840s. It is a heterothallic hemibiotrophic oomycete. The sexual reproduction offers the pathogen more flexibility and adaptability to the environmental conditions. Before 1980s, the populations of P. infestans in Europe were represented by only one clonal lineage, US-1. Later, dramatic changes have been detected in populations of this pathogen, including the introduction of the A2 mating type, and making the sexual reproduction possible. The old genotype US-1 was gradually replaced by the new ones. In this paper, we provide a description of the situation in the Central and Eastern Europe and the changes that happened after the introduction of the A2 mating type, before 2010. A detailed description for the situation in Poland, Hungary, Estonia and Romania is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the recent destructive Irish residential real estate bubble and its parlous economic and social consequences to explore the role of repressed ancestral suffering in driving institutional and broader societal responses to contemporary events. We demonstrate how a traumatic past can become interwoven in the fabric of the social order, rendering state and parastatal organizations and their leaders powerless. The concept of intergenerational transmission of trauma is key to our analysis. We show how the Irish obsession with owning property and land is a psychic attempt to transcend the traumatic past to "inhabit" an idealized pre‐colonial land leading to emergent feelings of empowerment, euphoria and omnipotence. We also explain why the Irish real estate bubble is being re‐enacted so soon. The potential to enhance interpretation through insights from literature, drama, and poetry is illustrated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contemporary proliferation of public memorials to Frederick Douglass in Ireland, Northern Ireland, and Scotland signals Douglass's centrality to the global, humanitarian aspirations of these regions. Colm McCann's novel TransAtlantic builds on this public, historic memory, making Douglass a model for transcending binary definitions of colonized and colonizer. McCann's Douglass navigates sympathy with Irish Catholics at the start of the Great Famine alongside his need to court English landowners willing to support the antislavery cause he had come to Ireland to promote. The article considers how Douglass's choices at this time speak to contemporary anticolonial movements and readers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the centrality of autobiographical memory in the construction of self and the experience of cultural trauma through the narrative of Thomas McNulty in the novel Days Without End. The character recalls the gruesome wars and cruel famine, which caused much agony and suffering throughout his life. The study attempts to make a textual analysis by employing the framework of autobiographical memory to interpret the complex relationship between the personal and collective selves. The novel adopts a unique form of autobiographical narrative to represent a personal and social history, thus functioning as a cultural narrative. The memory of the famine trauma is embodied in the personal story of Thomas McNulty, who recalls the national crisis that occurred during the 1840s. Trauma occupies a substantially large portion of the autobiographical narrative. He relays his experiences of painful existence in his native land and struggles to establish his cultural identity in a foreign land. Hence, the paper aims to analyze the characteristics of personal memory and trauma manifested in the narrative for the representations of Irish collective memory and cultural trauma of the Great Famine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a documentary film produced and enacted by one of the authors as a way of knowing, constructing and representing a specific form of tourist consumption, namely genealogy tourism. The documentary (https://vimeo.com/825001015?share=copy), entitled 'An Gorta Mor' (Gaelic words that translate to 'The Great Hunger', the Irish famine that occurred from 1845 to 1852), functions as both a vehicle to produce and present the ethnographic fieldwork conducted by one of the authors to trace back his ancestral roots and the empirical material to be analysed. The documentary unveils two emergent themes. The first is that genealogy tourism involves multiple fluid places and transnational identities that question 'fixed' notions of 'motherland', 'home' and 'family'. The second refers to roots tourism as a vehicle to propel bonding and bridging social capital. Methodologically, as a form of arts-based research, this work promotes embodied alternative ways of knowing tourist realities and selves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This public lecture considers the impact of the 1840s European potato blight on Scotland. It focuses especially on the Highlands, where phytophthora infestans exposed the people of the region to acute life-threatening crisis. Throughout, comparisons and contrasts are drawn with the Great Irish Famine (an Gorta Mór) which has attracted much more scholarly and popular attention than the famine in Scotland. One key question is why did the Highlands not starve, unlike the appalling tragedy over the Irish Sea? Devine further describes how Highland famine triggered an unprecedented scale and intensity of 'clearance', forced removal of people from their traditional holdings, which emptied entire districts of their people. He concludes by querying whether the era of Clearance ended with the removal of forced mass eviction, or whether other strategies by the landed class served to compel Highlanders to leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Read's book, "The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain's Financial Crisis," delves into the sensitive and complex history of Ireland's Great Famine from 1845 to 1852. Read offers a nuanced analysis of the famine's causes, conduct, and consequences, shedding light on the political context in which the British government's relief efforts unfolded. By examining the impact of the Peel government's Bank Charter Act of 1844 on famine relief policies, Read highlights the interconnectedness of fiscal and monetary policies with humanitarian crises, providing a fresh perspective on this tragic chapter in history. [Extracted from the article]

"The Coffin Ship: Life and Death at Sea During the Great Irish Famine" by Cian T. McMahon is a comprehensive examination of the journeys undertaken by Irish men and women during the Great Famine of 1845-1852. McMahon challenges the popular understanding of these voyages as desperate and deadly, arguing that they played a crucial role in the formation of the Irish diaspora as a transnational community. The book explores various aspects of the journey, including the financial resources needed for passage, the gathering of information and advice, life aboard the ships, death rates at sea, and the transition from emigrant to immigrant. McMahon's work sheds new light on the experiences of Irish immigrants and contributes to the scholarship on the Irish diaspora and immigration history. [Extracted from the article]

Public commemoration and performance are closely bound up with time, place and social arenas, the memorialization of the past serving a variety of goals. This article considers the memorialization of the experience of the famine that blighted Ireland and northern Scotland during the Victorian period, and focuses on Glasgow, one of Scotland's major cities and the destination of many famine migrants. It explores the instrumental use of the famine past in the public sphere in a city long haunted by the specter of sectarianism and considers the impact of the choices made by different collectives in the process of heritage making and remembrance of uncomfortable/difficult aspects of the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses three essays that explore the movement and translation of genres in the context of Victorian studies. The first essay by Amy E. Martin examines how Irish nationalist newspapers used gothic tropes to construct an image of the colonized world as an extralegal laboratory of power. The second essay by Cara Murray focuses on colonial sanitation reports in mid-century Bombay, highlighting how they enforced the logic of urban development without considering local geography and cultural practices. The third essay by Olivia Lingyi Xu discusses the popularity of Chinese translations of English novels at the end of the nineteenth century, emphasizing the role of translation in shaping the novel as a global genre. Overall, these essays offer new perspectives on the limitations and complexities of Victorian studies and highlight the value of literary studies in understanding the past. [Extracted from the article]

Summary: Nonhost resistance (NHR) is a robust plant immune response against non‐adapted pathogens. A number of nucleotide‐binding leucine‐rich repeat (NLR) proteins that recognize non‐adapted pathogens have been identified, although the underlying molecular mechanisms driving robustness of NHR are still unknown. Here, we screened 57 effectors of the potato late blight pathogen Phytophthora infestans in nonhost pepper (Capsicum annuum) to identify avirulence effector candidates. Selected effectors were tested against 436 genome‐wide cloned pepper NLRs, and we identified multiple functional NLRs that recognize P. infestans effectors and confer disease resistance in the Nicotiana benthamiana as a surrogate system. The identified NLRs were homologous to known NLRs derived from wild potatoes that recognize P. infestans effectors such as Avr2, Avrblb1, Avrblb2, and Avrvnt1. The identified CaRpi‐blb2 is a homologue of Rpi‐blb2, recognizes Avrblb2 family effectors, exhibits feature of lineage‐specifically evolved gene in microsynteny and phylogenetic analyses, and requires pepper‐specific NRC (NLR required for cell death)‐type helper NLR for proper function. Moreover, CaRpi‐blb2–mediated hypersensitive response and blight resistance were more tolerant to suppression by the PITG_15 278 than those mediated by Rpi‐blb2. Combined results indicate that pepper has stacked multiple NLRs recognizing effectors of non‐adapted P. infestans, and these NLRs could be more tolerant to pathogen‐mediated immune suppression than NLRs derived from the host plants. Our study suggests that NLRs derived from nonhost plants have potential as untapped resources to develop crops with durable resistance against fast‐evolving pathogens by stacking the network of nonhost NLRs into susceptible host plants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultivated potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is one of the most important crops worldwide. Phytophthora infestans (Mont.) de Bary is the oomycete pathogen responsible for the famous Irish famine (1840s). It is still the most important pathogen affecting potato crops, causing the late blight disease on potato and tomato. It is mainly controlled by fungicides. Breeding for disease resistance is the best alternative to chemical control of the disease. One of the strategies used is to stack many resistance genes in the same genotype. Here, we wanted to test the effect of the stacked resistance gene (R) from S. demissum on the infection process by the virulent race EU_13_A2. Four potato genotypes were tested, each one harboring, respectively, one, two, three or four R genes. All the tested genotypes were sensitive. However, the sensitivity degree was negatively correlated with the number of genes harbored by each genotype. There was a delay of two days of symptoms manifestation for the genotype with 4Rs, and the pathogen produced less spores on the detached leaf test. In addition, the amount of phenolic compounds produced is higher in the genotypes with multiple R genes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Great Famine in Ireland and Britain's Financial Crisis" by Charles Read and "Dublin and the Great Irish Famine" edited by Emily Mark-Fitzgerald, Ciarán McCabe, and Ciarán Reilly are two books that explore the Great Famine in Ireland. The Famine, also known as An Gorta Mór or the Irish potato famine, occurred between 1845 and the early 1850s and resulted in the loss of around two million lives and a significant decline in Ireland's population. The books examine the economic and political factors that contributed to the Famine, including the British government's response and the impact on Dublin. They also discuss the cultural memory and legacy of the Famine. These books provide valuable insights into this devastating event and its lasting effects on Ireland. [Extracted from the article]

This article considers the representation of the controversial issue of the Great Irish Famine (1845-50) in 27 recent Irish and UK history textbooks for the secondary level. Key contested issues - imports and exports, the British government's laissez-faire economic policy, providentialist interpretations, and victim-perpetrator discourses - have long formed part of the narrative repertoire of Famine history; their representation and narrativisation in textbooks is analysed through narrative and content analysis. Historical contextualisation and perspective taking are considered key skills for students studying history; these skills become even more important when dealing with controversial issues. The questions central to this research are: How do secondary-level history textbooks from Ireland and the UK represent the key contested elements regarding the Famine? Do they provide sufficiently complex accounts, thereby facilitating historical contextualisation and perspective taking? While some Irish and UK textbooks offer learners complex representations of the Famine, several others provide students with insufficient opportunity for perspective taking, and for developing a thorough understanding of the historical context. Specifically, the majority of the textbooks provide simplistic victim-perpetrator discourses. As such issues complicate historical contextualisation, perspective taking and, relatedly, empathy formation, the article suggests including more complex subject positions in textbook discussions of the Famine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Postoperative loss of control eating (LOCE) has detrimental associations with weight outcomes and mental health following bariatric surgery. However, little is known regarding LOCE course following surgery and preoperative factors that predict remittance, continuance, or development of LOCE. The present study aimed to characterize LOCE course in the year following surgery by identifying four groups: individuals with (1) postoperative de novo LOCE, (2) maintained LOCE (endorsed at pre- and post-surgery), (3) remitted LOCE (endorsed only at pre-surgery), and (4) those who never endorsed LOCE. Exploratory analyses examined group differences in baseline demographic and psychosocial factors. Materials and Methods: A total of 61 adult bariatric surgery patients completed questionnaires and ecological momentary assessment at pre-surgery and 3-, 6-, and 12-month postoperative follow-ups. Results: Results showed that 13 (21.3%) never endorsed LOCE prior to or after surgery, 12 (19.7%) developed LOCE after surgery, 7 (11.5%) evidenced remittance from LOCE after surgery, and 29 (47.5%) maintained LOCE prior to and after surgery. Relative to those who never endorsed LOCE, all groups who evidenced LOCE before and/or after surgery reported greater disinhibition; those who developed LOCE reported less planned eating; and those with maintained LOCE reported less satiety sensitivity and greater hedonic hunger. Conclusion: These findings highlight the importance of postoperative LOCE and need for longer-term follow-up studies. Results also suggest a need to examine the longer-term impact of satiety sensitivity and hedonic eating on LOCE maintenance, and the extent to which meal planning may buffer risk for de novo LOCE following surgery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article illuminates ways in which memory of Ireland's Great Famine or 'an Gorta Mór' (1845–1852) shaped US music during the US Civil War (1861–1865). Among scholarship on Irish Americans in the Civil War, few sources substantively address lingering memories and trauma from the Great Famine. Yet, a significant amount of the estimated 1.6 million Irish immigrants living in the US in 1860, 170,000 of whom enlisted in the war, were famine survivors. Music's unique role in emotional life offers robust source material for understanding famine memory in this transnational context. Adopting a concept of 'private, secret, insidious trauma' from Laura Brown and Maria P.P. Root, as well as understanding Jeffrey Alexander's ideas about cultural trauma as a sociological process, the article highlights a some of the ways in which famine memories emerged in music-making during the war. Case studies include a survey of US sheet music, the transnational performance and reception history of the song 'Kathleen Mavourneen', and research on the life of the northern Union army's most successful bandleader, Patrick Gilmore, who left Athlone, in Ireland famine-ravaged West, as a teenager in the late 1840s. The approach is inherently transatlantic, accounting for histories that occurred in the United States, Ireland and the broader Atlantic world dominated by Britain. The essay illustrates how music can contribute to social history, ways in which the application of research on trauma can inform musicological work, and ways in which traumatic memories can emerge across time and distance, particularly in diasporic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In accessing the unconscious, a new sense of self can be gleaned; Adams writes, Joyce finishes Finnegans Wake as "a legitimate son" (p. 103), in Joyce's original way of writing we can also find his self-examination. Understanding the great works of James Joyce is a formidable challenge, as is understanding the inner world of a replacement child, attested to by many a therapist's difficulties in diagnosing the condition in adult patients. In a soft voice, Adams skilfully interweaves facts from Joyce's life, his family and his masterworks, I Ulysses i and I Finnegans Wake i , and adds observations from her own clinical work. [Extracted from the article]

Historians generally portray the Irish immigrants who came to the United States, fleeing the Great Famine of the mid-nineteenth century, as hopelessly mired in poverty and hardship due to discrimination, a lack of occupational training, and oversaturated job markets in the East Coast cities where most of them settled. Although the digitization of census data and other records now enables the tracking of nineteenth-century Americans far more accurately than in the past, scholars have not utilized such data to determine whether the Famine Irish were, in fact, trapped on the bottom rungs of the American socioeconomic ladder. The use of a longitudinal database of Famine immigrants who initially settled in New York and Brooklyn indicates that the Famine Irish had far more occupational mobility than previously recognized. Only 25 percent of men ended their working careers in low-wage, unskilled labor; 44 percent ended up in white-collar occupations of one kind or another—primarily running saloons, groceries, and other small businesses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the Great Irish Famine a debate has raged concerning the culpability of the British government, especially in the person of Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Charles Edward Trevelyan, and its failure to come to the aid of the starving Irish. On one end of the debate, Trevelyan is accused of severe prejudice against the Irish, with some ultra-nationalists even accusing him of genocide. On the other end, Trevelyan is viewed simply as an ideologue intent on enforcing the Whig view of laissez-faire economics. However, a study of government involvement in the Irish and Scottish fishing industries shows that the political situation before and during the Famine was more complex than the traditional debate indicates. This paper argues that the government's treatment of the Irish fisheries, which were in a dismal state compared to the Scots, had more to do with political realities that Trevelyan inherited and could not ignore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to infect a new host species, the pathogen must evolve to enhance infection and transmission in the novel environment. Although we often think of evolution as a process of accumulation, it is also a process of loss. Here, we document an example of regressive evolution of an effector activity in the Irish potato famine pathogen (Phytophthora infestans) lineage, providing evidence that a key sequence motif in the effector PexRD54 has degenerated following a host jump. We began by looking at PexRD54 and PexRD54-like sequences from across Phytophthora species. We found that PexRD54 emerged in the common ancestor of Phytophthora clade 1b and 1c species, and further sequence analysis showed that a key functional motif, the C-terminal ATG8-interacting motif (AIM), was also acquired at this point in the lineage. A closer analysis showed that the P. mirabilis PexRD54 (PmPexRD54) AIM is atypical, the otherwise-conserved central residue mutated from a glutamate to a lysine. We aimed to determine whether this PmPexRD54 AIM polymorphism represented an adaptation to the Mirabilis jalapa host environment. We began by characterizing the M. jalapa ATG8 family, finding that they have a unique evolutionary history compared to previously characterized ATG8s. Then, using co-immunoprecipitation and isothermal titration calorimetry assays, we showed that both full-length PmPexRD54 and the PmPexRD54 AIM peptide bind weakly to the M. jalapa ATG8s. Through a combination of binding assays and structural modelling, we showed that the identity of the residue at the position of the PmPexRD54 AIM polymorphism can underpin high-affinity binding to plant ATG8s. Finally, we conclude that the functionality of the PexRD54 AIM was lost in the P. mirabilis lineage, perhaps owing to as-yet-unknown selection pressure on this effector in the new host environment. Author summary: Pathogens evolve in concert with their hosts. When a pathogen infects a new host species—an event known as a "host jump"—the pathogen must evolve to enhance infection and transmission. These evolutionary processes can involve both the gain and loss of genes, as well as dynamic changes in protein function. Here, we describe an example of a pathogen protein that lost a key functional domain following a host jump, a salient example of "regressive evolution." Specifically, we show that an effector protein from the plant pathogen Phytopthora mirabilis, a host-specific lineage closely related to the Irish potato famine pathogen Phytopthora infestans, has a new (derived) amino acid change that results in a loss of interaction with a specific host component. Thus, just like terrestrial birds that have lost the capacity to fly or cave-dwelling animals that have lost their eyesight, this effector protein has become non-functional for this particular trait. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]