Whole-Genome Resequencing Reveals Extensive Natural Variation in the Model Green Alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

Author Profile

Jonathan Flowers

Current Position: Research Scientist, New York University and New York University Abu Dhabi.

Education: Ph.D., University of California, San Diego, M.S. Louisiana State University.

Non-scientific Interests: Fossil hunting, birdwatching, antique flags, U2, LSU Tiger football.

My research has focused on a diverse collection of research questions in population genetics and molecular evolution. This work has included modeling the effects of natural selection on nucleotide diversity and identifying the evolutionary forces operating on genes in the context of biological networks. The basis for our present work was that studies of green algae including Chlamydomonas have yet to widely exploit intra-specific diversity in environmental isolates to advance research in many potential areas. We were primarily interested in characterizing the extensive diversity in natural populations of Chlamydomonas and discovering naturally-occuring loss-of-function alleles that may be of broad interest to algal researchers. When our research group, including Michael Purugannan and Kourosh Salehi-Ashtiani, learned that multiple conspecific strains of C. reinhardtii are maintained at the Chlamydomonas Resource Center at the University of Minnesota, we decided to work with Chlamydomonas researchers to generate a resource for studies of intra-specific diversity in an important model species while advancing our own interests in illuminating the mechanisms that maintain natural variation in plants and their relatives. We hope that the whole genome resequencing resource we present is a step toward enabling new discoveries in Chlamydomonas much the same way genome sequencing of diverse ecotypes led to significant advances in studies of Arabidopsis.