Novel genome characteristics contribute to the invasiveness of Phragmites australis (common reed)

The Phragmites australis subsp. australis (chloroplast haplotype M, a subspecies invasive in North America) genome provides an important resource for the research community to facilitate genomic comparisons with P. australis subsp. americanus, native in North America, and other ecologically important grasses. Predicted gene models, evidence of whole-genome duplications, and expansion or contraction of protein families over evolutionary time will provide insights into the evolutionary history of P. australis. The transcriptome data derived from invasive and native Phragmites subspecies allow analyses on the divergence in basal-level compositions and responses to endophyte inoculation among genotypes collected from multiple habitats across the Great Lakes. This project is a collaborative effort by groups from the Great Lakes Science Center, United States Geological Survey, Dept. of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, and Dept. of Biology, Louisiana State University. This project has been also supported by the High-Performance Computing at Louisiana State University (HPC@LSU) and the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics (CGB) at Indiana University Bloomington.