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Organisers
Luc De Meester, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Ellen Decaestecker, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Kortrijk Campus, Belgium
Luisa Orsini, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Kevin Pauwels, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Mieke Jansen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Luisa Orsini, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Joost Vanoverbeke, Ghent University, Belgium
Karel De Schamphelaere, University of Ghent, Belgium
Colin Janssen, University of Ghent, Belgium
Dries Knapen, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Ronny Blust, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Wim De Coen, University of Antwerp, Belgium
Michael Pfrender, University of Notre Dame, USA
John Colbourne, Indiana University, USA
Introduction
Daphnia (Crustacea: Cladocera) has already been developed as a key phenotypic model
organism in ecology, evolutionary biology and ecotoxicology, and has been particularly
intensively studied with respect to phenotypic plasticity towards a wide variety of
stressors, including predators, parasites, and extreme or novel abiotic conditions
(Colbourne et al. 2005; 2009; Shaw et al. 2008). This is in part due to their ease of
culture, convenient size, short generation time and cyclic parthenogenetic reproduction,
which make them very suitable for laboratory and field experiments, experimental
evolution, and quantitative genetic analyses in multiple environments. Thanks to the
sustained efforts of the Daphnia Genomics Consortium (DGC), Daphnia has the potential to rapidly become a leading model invertebrate in
ecological genomics (Shaw et al. 2008; http://www.nih.gov/science/models/daphnia/).
The completed draft genome sequence assembly of Daphnia pulex is publicly available,
with helpful bioinformatic resources (JGI Genome Portal;
wFleaBase; (Colbourne et al. 2005, 2009), and there is a steady
stream of reports on the Daphnia research community.s discoveries from the consortium-
wide manual annotation project (e.g. see http://www.biomedcentral.com/series/Daphnia).
Moreover, DGC researchers are currently investing to reveal the D. magna genome
(https://projects.cgb.indiana.edu/display/grp/D.+magna+Genome). D. magna is,
especially in Europe, intensively used to study stress responses to pollutants, climate
change, and antagonistic interactions with predators and parasites (Cousyn et al. 2001;
Meyer et al. 2009; Van Doorslaer et al. 2009). An increasing number of candidate genes
with respect to responses to specific stressors are being identified, and recently, a
number of D. magna (Watanabe et al. 2005; Soetaert et al. 2006; Poyton et al. 2007;
Pauwels et al., unpubl.) and D.pulex (Eads et al. 2007a, 2007b; Shaw et al. 2007;
Frochlich et al. 2009; Pirow et al. 2009) proteomics and microarray studies have been
carried out. Daphnia has clear advantages as an ecogenomic model compared with
other more traditional invertebrate genomic models, such as Caenorhabditis elegans and
Drosophila melanogaster. Daphnia play a pivotal role in the ecology of standing waters,
are widely used in population studies and environmental risk assessments, and are supported by a large community of ecologists, evolutionary
biologists and ecotoxicologists. As the cyclical parthenogenetic life cycle of Daphnia
allows one to work with clonal lineages, it is relatively straightforward to study responses
of specific genotypes to controlled environmental changes in a replicated design. This
offers unique opportunities for the joint analysis of responses at the genomic and trait
level, including changes in gene expression. A key asset of Daphnia is that quantifying
trait variation and its link to fitness is relatively straightforward, as one can monitor
changes in life history traits (Heckmann et al. 2007) and assess fitness in replicated
competition experiments (Capaul & Ebert 2003; Van Doorslaer et al. 2009). In addition,
dormant egg banks in layered sediments allow historical reconstruction of evolutionary
responses to stress through “resurrection ecology” (Hairston et al. 1999; Cousyn et al.
2001; Decaestecker et al. 2007) and paleogenetics (Mergeay et al. 2007).
This meeting aims to gather together the researchers within the Daphnia Genomics
consortium to facilitate the exchange of information on the results obtained from the
ongoing investigations into Daphnia genome biology. In this meeting the Daphnia magna
genome project will be announced (currently >10x coverage of the Daphnia magna
genome available for the consortium members). Given the strong importance of Daphnia
magna in ecotoxicological research and the associated evolutionary-ecological research,
this meeting is an important opportunity. More particular, we are interested in starting up
research elucidating genomic and transcriptomic responses and the downstream
mechanisms underlying morphological, behavioural, life history and physiological
responses to stress factors. These research questions are also the basis of an
Eurocores EEFG-proposal (Stressflea), from which the organizers of this meeting are
involved in two IPs of the Stressflea EEFG-proposal. Stressflea aims to link genomic and
transcriptomic responses to fitness and traits in order to generate insight into the
architecture and mechanistic underpinnings of phenotypic responses of natural
populations to multiple stressors, using Daphnia as a model system. This meeting will
also explore and initiate Daphnia systems biology by inviting bio-informatics groups with
systems biology background. Additionally, at this DGC-meeting, we will welcome
researchers working with other model or non-model organisms in the field of ecological
genomics. The DGC meeting will have a significant impact on the future development of
the research groups involved in the consortium, and it will have the added value of
promoting collaborations between researchers working with different model organisms. We will invite DGC members at large and everybody interested to participate, to learn
about recent developments and future perspectives in the Daphnia genome biology. The
meeting will have plenary lectures from keynote speakers in several research fields
related to Daphnia and other organisms and will offer young investigators the chance to
present their research and discuss with experienced senior researchers.
References
Capaul M & Ebert D (2003) Evolution 57:249-260; Colbourne JK, Pfrender M, D. G, et al. (2009)
submitted; Colbourne JK, Singan VRa, & Gilbert D (2005) BMC Bioinformatics 6:45; Cousyn C, et
al. (2001) PNAS 98:6256-6260; Decaestecker E, et al. (2007) Nature 450:870-874; Eads BD,
Andrews J, & Colbourne JK (2007) Heredity 100:184-190; Eads BD, Colbourne JK, Bohuski E, &
Andrews J (2007) BMC Genomics8:464; Frohlich T, Arnold GJ, Fritsch R, Mayr T, & Laforsch C
(2009) BMC Genomics 10:171; Hairston JNG, et al. (1999) Nature 401:446; Heckmann L-H, et al.
(2007) Toxicol Lett 172:137-145; Mergeay J, Vanoverbeke J, Verschuren D, & De Meester L
(2007) Ecology 88:3032–3043; Meyer E, et al. (2009) BMC Genomics 10:219; Poyton HC, et al.
(2007) Environ Sci Technol 41:1044-1050; Pirow R, et al. (2009) In preparation. Shaw JR, et al. (2007) BMC Genomics 8:477; Shaw JR, et al. (2008) Advances in experimental
biology on toxicogenomics, eds Hogstrand C & Kille P (Elsevier Press), pp 165-219; Soetaert A,
et al. (2006) Comp. Biochem. Physiol. C: Toxicol.Pharmacol 142:66-76; Van Doorslaer W, Stoks
R, Duvivier C, Bednarska A, & De Meester L (2009) Evolution in press; Watanabe H, et al. (2005)
Genome / National Research Council Canada 48:606-609.
The programme is available here.
The Daphnia Genomics Consortium Meeting will be held in Leuven, which is a beautiful century-old university town in Belgium. The town combines a rich historical patrimonium with a cheerful, Burgundian city culture and a creative atmosphere.
The meeting will be hosted in the facilities of the K.U. Leuven, more specifically in the Law Department, located in the city centre.
Address:
"College De Valk"
Tiensestraat 41
3000 Leuven
Registration
Registration is now closed.
