Reverse ecology refers to the use of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

to study

ecology Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...

with no ''a priori'' assumptions about the organism(s) under consideration. The term was suggested in 2007 by Matthew Rockman during a conference on ecological genomics in

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon River / ...

, New Zealand. Rockman was drawing an analogy to the term reverse genetics in which gene function is studied by comparing the phenotypic effects of different genetic sequences of that gene. Most researchers employing reverse ecology make use of some sort of population genomics methodology. This requires that a genome scan is performed on multiple individuals from at least two populations in order to identify genomic regions or sites that show signs of selection. These genome scans usually utilize single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers, though use of

microsatellite A microsatellite is a tract of repetitive DNA in which certain DNA motifs (ranging in length from one to six or more base pairs) are repeated, typically 5–50 times. Microsatellites occur at thousands of locations within an organism's genome. ...

s can work as well (with reduced resolution).

Methodology

Reverse ecology has been used by researchers to understand environments and other ecological traits of organisms on Earth using genomic approaches. By examining the genes of

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

, scientists are able to reconstruct what the

organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and ...

s' environments are like today, or even from millions of years ago. The data could help us understand key events in the history of life on Earth. In 2010, researchers presented a technique to carry out reverse ecology to infer a

's living temperature-range conditions based on the GC content of certain genomic regions. In 2011, researchers at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

were able to demonstrate that one can determine an organism's adaptive traits by looking first at its genome and checking for variations across a population.

References

{{Reflist, 30em Ecology

Methodology

See also

References