Genomics research dominated by "charismatic" organisms

What is it about?

Even though we are in the era of genomics, half of the known eukaryotic lineages or branches remain unsampled at a genomic level. Moreover, a quarter of the groups do not have a single culture available. This bias is so huge that seriously weakens our understanding of what an eukaryote is. To fill this gap we propose to 1) sequence at least one representative of the neglected groups available at public culturecollections, 2) to increase our culturing efforts, and 3) to use single-cell genomics

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Why is it important?

Understanding the evolution of the eukaryotic cell and the full diversity of eukaryotes is relevant to many biological disciplines. The past and current bias towards studying animals, plants, fungi, algae, and human parasites precludes a real knowledge of the diversity of eukaryotes. The time has come to reverse this problem. Thus, we consider that filling in the eukaryotic tree at the genomic level based on phylogenetic diversity should be a priority for the community.