Biological Bulletin Virtual Symposium: Genomics of Large Marine Metazoans

Abstract

The phrase “genomics of large marine metazoans” is an ungainly mouthful. So are the animals themselves, in most cases. The species addressed in this virtual symposium circumscribe a great catalog of morphological, ecological, and phylogenetic diversity that has fascinated marine scientists for many years. Genome sequences and expressed sequence tag projects provide a means to understand this diversity from a different and in some ways more comprehensive viewpoint. Collectively the animals that are the subject of these papers differ significantly from the standard genetic models that dominate our current understanding of the breadth of animal molecular biology. These differences are reflected in their life history and larger genomes (though by no means unusually large). Their longer life spans may correlate with their often greater genetic complexity. Finally, the marine environment compasses extreme ranges of physical conditions, and understanding the unique genetic features of extremophiles will be helped tremendously by genomic approaches (see Nyholm et al., this issue).