The Brassicales is a phenotypically diverse order of plants that display incredible variation in traits relevant to the Department of Energy mission. With more than 4,700 species spread across 17 families, the Brassicales is an ideal phylogenetic model for mining the genetic variation underlying the repeated evolution of traits such as oil production, photosynthesis system variation, transitions between herbaceousness and woodiness, and the evolution of complex, specialized metabolites.
Proposer: Alex Harkess, Auburn University
Proposal: The Brassicales Genome Initiative