Ecological Genomics of Algae

"Algae represent the majority of biodiversity of photosynthetic organisms on our plant, contributing nearly 50% of CO2 drawdown from O2 production to the atmosphere and providing the foundation of the marine ecosystem. Despite these same ultimate ecological roles, algal species can come from vastly different phylogenetic groups and have different ecological niches. Their ways of energy acquisition, nutrient uptake and assimilation, defense against grazing, microbial attacks, and stress, and reproduction can be profoundly different. They adapt to their respective lifestyles and habitats, with different survival and lifecycle strategies. In the last half century, our understanding of the ecology of phytoplankton has evolved from the population and community level to the molecular level. In particular, the fast-increasing accessibility of high throughput genome and transcriptome sequencing, as well as rapidly growing computing capacity and innovated bioinformatics algorithms, have ushered in a new age for phytoplankton ecology. As genomics has infiltrated every life science subdiscipline, phytoplankton biology and ecology are no exception. However, while traditional phytoplankton ecology and modern algal genomics have advanced remarkably fast in parallel, the needed integration and synthesis of exciting findings and new knowledge from both fields have not caught up, at least not in a 'one-stop shop' volume. And no current textbook is dedicated to the topic of phytoplankton genomics. This text introduces algal genomics and integrates algal genomics with ecology. It furnishes the foundational knowledge of genomics and ecology of algae, provides a roadmap enhancing understanding of algal physiologies and ecological traits and their underpinnings, and serves as a valuable reference for researchers specialized in one or more major phyla or interested in certain metabolic processes of algae"--