Genomics in the ecological arena

This meeting report presents the cutting-edge research that is developing around the waterflea Daphnia, an emerging model system in environmental genomics. Daphnia has been a model species in ecology, toxicology and evolution for many years and is supported by a large community of ecologists, evolutionary biologists and ecotoxicologists. Thanks to new advances in genomics and transciptomics and to the sustained efforts of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium (DGC), Daphnia is also rapidly developing as a model system in environmental genomics. Advances in this emerging field were presented at the DGC 2010, held for the first time in a European University. During the meeting, a plethora of elegant studies were presented on the mechanisms of responses to environmental challenges using recently developed genomic tools. The DGC 2010 is a concrete example of the new trends in ecology and evolution. The times are mature for the application of innovative genomic and transcriptomic tools for studies of environmental genomics in non-model organisms.