Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Mar 25:4:e06956.
doi: 10.7554/eLife.06956.

New opportunities at the wild frontier

Jane Alfred  1 , Ian T Baldwin  2
Affiliations

New opportunities at the wild frontier

Jane Alfred et al. Elife. .

Abstract

A better understanding of the natural history of model organisms will increase their value as model systems and also keep them at the forefront of research.

Keywords: C. elegans; E. coli; S. cerevisiae; arabidopsis; ciona intestinalis; ecology; evolutionary biology; genomics; maize; model organisms; natural history; the natural history of model organisms; zebrafish.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.. Scientists know a great deal about model organisms as diverse as Arabidopsis thaliana and the zebrafish, but there is still a lot to learn about their life and biology in the wild, including the way that their behaviours are shaped by habitat, their predator-prey relationships, their ability to adapt to different environmental conditions, and the genetic basis for this adaptability.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.06956.002
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chen L, Tang L, Xiang H, Jin L, Li Q, Dong Y, Wang W, Zhang G. Advances in genome editing technology and its promising application in evolutionary and ecological studies. Gigascience. 2014;3:24. doi: 10.1186/2047-217X-3-24. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Doudna JA, Charpentier E. The new frontier of genome engineering with CRISPR-Cas9. Science. 2014;346:1258096. doi: 10.1126/science.1258096. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Li YF, Costello JC, Holloway AK, Hahn MW. ‘Reverse ecology’ and the power of population genomics. Evolution. 2008;62:2984–2994. doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2008.00486.x. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ronald PC. Lab to farm: Applying research on plant genetics and genomics to crop improvement. PLOS Biology. 2014;12:e1001878. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1001878. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms