Hout, Sanne van der (Author)
History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
Volume: 35, no. 4
Issue: 4
Pages: 577-598
The emerging field of ecological genomics promises to bring about a marriage between ecological and laboratory-based, genomic investigations. In this paper, I will reflect on this promise by exploring how ecology and genomics are integrated in the two approaches that currently dominate this field: the organism-centred approach, focusing on individual (model) organisms, and the metagenomic approach, concentrating on (the metagenome of) entire microbial communities composed of a variety of species. I will show that both approaches have already taken some important steps in bridging the gap between genomics and ecology. Since the introduction of next-generation sequencing methodology in 2007, the organism-centred approach does not need to stick to classical model organisms like Arabidopsis anymore. Instead, it is now able to apply genomic tools to ecologically interesting species (e.g. amphibians, reptiles, birds) as well. The metagenomic approach has been able to give ecology a more prominent place in its investigations, in another way. Contrary to classical microbiology (the field from which it originates), it does not study microbial communities under controlled laboratory settings, but under nature's own conditions. However, in the marriage between genomics and ecology, genomics still appears to be the dominant partner, especially in the case of the organism-centred approach that continues to study the new ecological models in artificial lab environments. Moreover, the organism-centred and metagenomic approaches employ a gene-centred perspective in understanding critical ecological interactions, thus strengthening a reductionist rather than a holistic (systems-oriented) approach.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Stephanie Elizabeth Mohr;
(2018)
First in Fly: Drosophila Research and Biological Discovery
(/isis/citation/CBB668155327/)
Article
Tarquin Holmes;
(2017)
The wild type as concept and in experimental practice: A history of its role in classical genetics and evolutionary theory
(/isis/citation/CBB016897194/)
Article
Mauro Capocci;
(2017)
Regimen Strikes Back. Diagnosis, Genes and the Patient
(/isis/citation/CBB699749755/)
Article
Robert Kohler;
(2022)
Lords of the Fly Revisited
(/isis/citation/CBB701830584/)
Book
Ackert, Lloyd;
(2013)
Sergei Vinogradskii and the Cycle of Life: From the Thermodynamics of Life to Ecological Microbiology, 1850--1950
(/isis/citation/CBB001421665/)
Article
Rasmus Grønfeldt Winther;
Ryan Giordano;
Michael D. Edge;
Rasmus Nielsen;
(2015)
The mind, the lab, and the field: Three kinds of populations in scientific practice
(/isis/citation/CBB568872966/)
Article
Kingsland, Sharon E.;
(2009)
Frits Went's Atomic Age Greenhouse: The Changing Labscape on the Lab-Field Border
(/isis/citation/CBB000932218/)
Article
Karen A. Rader;
(2022)
Reflections on Making Mice (2004)
(/isis/citation/CBB321873815/)
Article
Simon Lohse;
(2021)
Scientific inertia in animal-based research in biomedicine
(/isis/citation/CBB124857110/)
Article
Rebecca A. Hardesty;
(2018)
Much ado about mice: Standard-setting in model organism research
(/isis/citation/CBB487976291/)
Article
Gail Davies;
(2021)
Locating the ‘culture wars’ in laboratory animal research: National constitutions and global competition
(/isis/citation/CBB369219796/)
Chapter
Barrow, Mark V., Jr.;
(2010)
On the Trail of the Ivory-Bill: Field Science, Local Knowledge, and the Struggle to Save Endangered Species
(/isis/citation/CBB001000296/)
Chapter
Lock, Margaret;
(2012)
From Genetics to Postgenomics and the Discovery of the New Social
(/isis/citation/CBB001251777/)
Article
François C. Romijn;
(2023)
Negotiating Belgian identity in Wisconsin through ancestry genomics
(/isis/citation/CBB760985734/)
Book
Matthew Cobb;
(2015)
Life's Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code
(/isis/citation/CBB121718996/)
Book
Sandra S. Lee;
Barbara A. Koenig;
Sarah S. Richardson;
(2008)
Revisiting Race in a Genomic Age
(/isis/citation/CBB269168445/)
Article
TallBear, Kim;
(August 2013)
Genomic articulations of indigeneity
(/isis/citation/CBB368828568/)
Book
Ian McGonigle;
(2021)
Genomic Citizenship: The Molecularization of Identity in the Contemporary Middle East
(/isis/citation/CBB092609489/)
Book
Inhorn, Marcia Claire;
Wentzell, Emily A.;
(2012)
Medical Anthropology at the Intersections: Histories, Activisms, and Futures
(/isis/citation/CBB001251701/)
Article
Guido Barbujani;
(2017)
What Genetics Has to Say about Racial Categorization of Humans
(/isis/citation/CBB088477154/)
Be the first to comment!