Genome projects in invasion biology

Advances in sequencing and informatics and rapidly falling costs have made genome sequencing projects far more accessible to researchers in all of the life sciences, including invasion biology. A complete genome is now the most efficient first step towards identifying and characterizing candidate genes that control invasiveness. At the genomic level, fundamental problems in invasion science can be pursued with great precision and rigor. This includes reconstruction of the history of invasions, analysis of demographic dynamics within colonizing populations, and study of the rapid, adaptive evolution of invasiveness. This update documents new developments in the emerging field of invasion genomics. Our review found that of 100 of the world’s most damaging invasive species, assembled genomes are available for 27—a minority but still a considerable resource. This calls for a larger investment in genomics, but also highlights publicly available genomic resources for invasive species that remain underutilized. We examine the value of reference genomes. We conclude that while some technologies (e.g. genotyping by Next Generation Sequencing) can be applied without reference genomes or with fragmented ones, investments in high quality genome assemblies will provide considerable long-term benefits in invasion and conservation genomics research programs.