PARENT SESSION
Symposium #1: Linking Molecular Insight and Ecological Research.

Organized by: RB Jackson and CR Linder
Monday, August 5. 8:00 AM to 11:30 AM. Crystal Ballroom, TCC.

Genomics-enabled ecology and ecology-enabled genomics.

FEDER, MARTIN^*,1, ¹ University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

ABSTRACT- That genomic and post-genomic information has the potential to benefit ecologists is not surprising. One major impediment to exploiting such information is that the model organisms for which it is available are seemingly not good models for ecology, and good ecological model species often lack genomic information. Three strategies for surmounting this difficulty are: (1) Conducting ecological research on standard model organisms; (2) Using homology and bioinformatics to transfer genomic information from models to related non-models; (3) Assembling scientific communities that can advocate genomic projects for good ecological models. I will discuss examples of each. In turn, that ecology has the potential to inform genomics would surprise few ecologists and is becoming increasingly evident to genomicists as genomics becomes less descriptive and more functional. Specifically, the significance of much genomic variation becomes obvious only when phenotypes are examined in appropriate ecological context. Accordingly, there is a growing opportunity for ecologists to partner with genomicists for mutual benefit.

KEY WORDS: genomics, model organism, functional genomics