The undeniable power of plants, and the lessons they can teach us, are why the JGI took on the Open Green Genome Initiative in 2018 as part of its Community Science Program. A recent paper published in Nature Communications on Ceratopteris richardii marks the first published manuscript of a genome sequence generated through the OGG and solves an ongoing mystery in ferns.
For a long time, this immense size and chromosomal hoarding characteristic in ferns had been thought to be the result of multiple whole-genome duplications. The problem with that theory was that the handful of documented WGDs in ferns could not explain the massive size of most fern genomes.
Learn more about what mysteries JGI collaborators solved in C-fern on the JGI’s website.
