Knowledge and management of aquatic ecosystems (formerly Bulletin Français de la Pèche et de la Pisciculture), an international journal on freshwater ecosystem

The full exploration of gene-environment interactions requires model organisms with well-characterized ecological interactions in their natural environment, manipulability in the laboratory and genomic tools. The waterfleaDaphnia magnais an established ecological and toxicological model species, central to the food webs of freshwater lentic habitats and sentinel for water quality. Its tractability and cyclic parthenogenetic life-cycle are ideal to investigate links between genes and the environment. Capitalizing on this unique model system, the STRESSFLEA consortium generated a comprehensive RNA-Seq data set by exposing two inbred genotypes ofD. magnaand a recombinant cross of these genotypes to a range of environmental perturbations. Gene models were constructed from the transcriptome data and mapped onto the draft genome ofD. magnausing EvidentialGene. The transcriptome data generated here, together with the available draft genome sequence ofD. magnaand a high-density genetic map will be a key asset for future investigations in environmental genomics.