Collaborative Project: A workshop addressing comparative genomic approaches to understanding the evolutionary ecology of corals and other basal metazoans.

为了帮助我们更快地了解珊瑚及其与更基本的和衍生的分类群之间的关系，将于2014年冬季在罗格斯大学举办一次研讨会。这次研讨会的重点将是改进红海珊瑚Stylophora pistillata的基因组草稿的注释，并与更多的基本和派生分类群进行比较分析。研讨会的目标是最终确定广泛使用的珊瑚模型的基因组注释。国际范围的讲习班参与者还将比较珊瑚基因组，为研究界提供基因组参考数据库，并能够分析珊瑚新陈代谢、生物矿化、进化和发育的功能基因组模型。这项工作包括基础科学和应用科学两个部分。基本组成部分与了解珊瑚的进化生态及其与其他基础动物的关系有关。应用部分与珊瑚对全球气候变化相关压力的敏感性有关，包括热应力和海洋酸化。珊瑚是受威胁生态系统的建筑师，具有高度的文化、生物和经济价值。这一重要分类组的基因组资源现在才开始出现，这次讲习班将推进解释基因组数据和开放获取基因组数据所需的框架，这一活动将为珊瑚礁科学领域建立重要的研究能力。除了由同行评审的概述调查结论的出版物外，数据还将在一个参考的和可解释的珊瑚基因组数据库中广泛传播，该数据库将通过一个门户网站为科学家、教育工作者、管理人员、保护人员和非人类社区提供服务。在培训方面，两名博士后研究员和一名研究生将负责研讨会的详细组织工作。这一经历将使他们了解如何在科学界发展合作努力，作为其指导计划的一部分，并为非常不同的讲习班参与者群体提供联网机会，这对他们的职业发展将是重要的。

To help accelerate our understanding of corals and their relation to more basal and derived taxa, a workshop will be held at Rutgers University in the winter 2014. This workshop will focus on improving the annotation of a draft genome for the Red Sea coral, Stylophora pistillata, coupled with a comparative analysis with more basal and derived taxa. The goal of the workshop is to finalize the annotation of the genome of the widely used model coral. Workshop participants, international in scope, would also compare coral genomes, provide a genomic reference data base for the research community, and allow analyses of functional genomic models of coral metabolism, biomineralization, evolution, and development. The effort has both basic and applied science components. The basic components are related to understanding the evolutionary ecology of corals and their relationship to other basal animals. The applied components are related to the sensitivity of corals to global climate change related stressors including thermal stress and ocean acidification.Scleractinian corals are the architects of a threatened ecosystem that are highly valued culturally, biologically and economically. Genomic resources for this important taxonomic group are only now beginning to emerge and this workshop will advance the framework required to interpret genomic data and provide open access to genomic data, an activity that will build significant research capacity for the field of coral reef science. In addition to a peer reviewed publication summarizing the conclusion of the investigations, data will be disseminated broadly in a referenced and interpretable database of coral genomes that will serve scientists, educators, managers, conservation personnel and the lay community via a web portal. In terms of training, two postdoctoral fellows and a graduate student will be responsible for the detailed organization of the workshop. This experience will allow them to understand how to develop cooperative efforts in the scientific community as part of their mentoring plan and provide networking opportunities with the very diverse group of workshop participants that will be important in their career development.