Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis is a unique fungus responsible for chytridiomycosis, an emerging infectious disease that is responsible for global amphibian declines. First identified in 1998 on frogs originating from Australia and Central America, B. dendrobatidis has now been reported to be killing frogs on every continent except Asia and Antarctica. Despite international collaboration and considerable research…
Why Sequence Sorghum?
One of the world’s leading grain crops, sorghum is also an important model for tropical grasses of worldwide importance with a collective minimum economic impact of $69 billion U.S. per year. As a model for the tropical grasses, sorghum is a logical complement to Oryza (rice), the first monocot plant to be sequenced. Sorghum is…
Why Sequence the Monkey Flower?
One of the challenges of 21st-century biology is to determine, at the DNA sequence level, the basis of adaptive evolution in nature. The flowering plant genus Mimulus (monkey flowers) has become a leading model system for studying ecological and evolutionary genetics in nature. JGI will sequence the species Mimulus guttatus. Since Darwin, Mimulus species have…
Why Sequence Arabidopsis lyrata and Capsella rubella?
Sequencing Arabidopsis lyrata and Capsella rubella, close relatives of Arabidopsis thaliana, will leverage the rich information now available for A. thaliana, arguably the most important reference plant. Arabidopsis lyrata is the closest well-characterized relative in the same genus as A. thaliana, and Capsella is the closest well-characterized genus. Several technologies are currently being used to…
Why Sequence Sulfur-Oxidizing Bacteria?
Several environmental problems, such as acid rain, biocorrosion, etc., are caused by sulfur compounds, such as sulfur dioxide (SO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). A sustainable process to remove these sulfur compounds is the production of elemental sulfur from H2S-containing gas streams by the use of sulfide-oxidizing bacteria. In this process, H2S is absorbed into the…
Why Sequence Thermolithobacter ferrireducens?
Thermolithobacter ferrireducens gen. nov., sp. nov. is a novel Gram-type-positive bacterium. It is an obligately anaerobic, chemolithoautotrophic (i.e., using hydrogen as electron donor in energy production), iron(III)-reducing organism. This bacterium exhibits, under chemolithoautotrophic conditions, the highest iron reduction rate per cell reported to date, and the iron reduction occurs over the wide pH range (measured…
Why Sequence a Thauera species?
The genus Thauera has been described only relatively recently. Thauera is characterized by its ability to use aromatic hydrocarbons under anoxic conditions and contains unique pathways for the degradation of these aromatic compounds. It can use selenate as an electron acceptor without interference by nitrate. Also, Thauera can grow chemolithoautotrophically, using hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and…
Why Sequence a Near-Shore Anoxic Basin?
Oxygen minimum zones (OMZs; areas of low dissolved oxygen concentrations) play a major role in biogeochemical cycling within the world’s oceans. They are major sinks for nitrogen and sources for the gases carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide. Microbially mediated biological activity associated with these systems affects the productivity of the deep blue sea and the…
Why Sequence Rhizobium leguminosarum?
The productivity of agricultural systems is usually nitrogen dependent. As oil prices rise, so does the price of nitrogen fertilizer, which impacts strongly on global farming economics. The only substitute for fertilizer nitrogen is the use of symbiotic legumes and their nitrogen-fixing rhizobia. This market is worth in excess of US$13 billion globally. The clover…
Why Sequence the Microbial Community from a Wastewater Treatment Plant?
The goal of this project is to get a concise picture of the capacity of a complete complex microbial community in a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) to exchange genetic material via plasmids (i.e., the plasmid mobilome) and to understand the variability of the mobilome as a function of WWTP operation. WWTPs, a significant if rather…