2006 Annual Report 4d.Progress report. This report serves to document research conducted under a reimbursable agreement between ARS and the Forest Service. Additional details of research can be found in the report for the parent project 5358-12220-002-00D, Biology and Management of Soilborne Diseases and Soil and Root-Inhabiting Microorganisms. Dr. Niklaus Grunwald and collaborators conducted the following research towards the agreement: The objectives of the work funded are (i) to monitor the migration, population structure and evolution of Phytophthora ramorum in North America using microsatellites and multiple sequence loci, (ii) to maintain an open-access, web-based database and culture collection with genotypic information, (iii) and to develop more powerful molecular markers for genotyping useful in monitoring migration and contemporary evolution of P. ramorum. Work was initiated and is now in progress. We are currently monitoring population structure using the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique. Microsatellites are being evaluated and adapted for use in routine genotyping. We obtained a software suite to maintain the web-based database that is currently being updated. Potential novel molecular markers have been screened using the genome sequence available and will be evaluated using PCR and sequencing.