Journal of Heredity 2014:105(1):1–18 © The American Genetic Association 2013. All rights reserved. doi:10.1093/jhered/est084 For permissions, please e-mail:
[email protected] The Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance (GIGA): Developing Community Resources to Study Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/jhered/article-abstract/105/1/1/858593 by University of Florida, Joseph Ryan on 28 May 2019 Diverse Invertebrate Genomes GIGA COMMUNiTY OF SciENTisTs* Address correspondence to Dr. Jose V. Lopez, Oceanographic Center, Nova Southeastern University, 8000 North Ocean Drive, Dania Beach, FL 33004, or e-mail:
[email protected]. *Authors are listed in the Appendix Abstract Over 95% of all metazoan (animal) species comprise the “invertebrates,” but very few genomes from these organisms have been sequenced. We have, therefore, formed a “Global Invertebrate Genomics Alliance” (GIGA). Our intent is to build a collaborative network of diverse scientists to tackle major challenges (e.g., species selection, sample collection and storage, sequence assembly, annotation, analytical tools) associated with genome/transcriptome sequencing across a large taxonomic spectrum. We aim to promote standards that will facilitate comparative approaches to invertebrate genomics and collabora- tions across the international scientific community. Candidate study taxa include species from Porifera, Ctenophora, Cnidaria, Placozoa, Mollusca, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Annelida, Bryozoa, and Platyhelminthes, among others. GIGA will target 7000 noninsect/nonnematode species, with an emphasis on marine taxa because of the unrivaled phyletic diversity in the oceans. Priorities for selecting invertebrates for sequencing will include, but are not restricted to, their phylogenetic placement; relevance to organismal, ecological, and conservation research; and their importance to fisheries and human health.