Investigation of the life cycle of the brown alga Ectocarpus siliculosus

Informations

Funding country

France

Acronym

Bi-cycle

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2011

End date

-

Budget

370,000 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

The life cycle of an organism is one of its most elemental features, underpinning a broad range of phenomena including developmental processes, reproductive fitness, interaction with the environment and population structure. However, despite their fundamental importance, many very basic aspects of life cycles are still poorly understood. For example, despite considerable theoretical work, there is still no unequivocal explanation for the existence and stability of a broad diversity of life cycles in nature, ranging from diploid through haploid-diploid to haploid life cycles. The brown algae exhibit a very broad diversity of life cycles within a single taxon and therefore represent a very interesting group for investigating life cycle function. The objective of this project is to improve our understanding of the life cycle of the filamentous brown alga Ectocarpus through a combination of laboratory-based analyses and field studies. The laboratory-based analyses will focus on the regulation of the life cycle, using both genetic and genomic approaches, and is expected to provide important information about how the life cycle is regulated and implemented at the molecular level. The field studies will concentrate on understanding how the life cycle functions under field conditions. Ectocarpus exhibits a complex life cycle in the laboratory; the aim will be to determine how (and if) the various possibilities presented by this complex life cycle are exploited by this organism under field conditions. The project will investigate the adaptive value of the life cycle in the seashore environment. Finally, the project will also test experimentally the different evolutionary hypotheses that have been proposed for the maintenance of haploid-diploid life cycles.