Geneticists tend to crowd around a few favorite organisms that have long histories in research and a wealth of practiced protocols for manipulating their genes. But those organisms aren’t always the best choice to answer a scientific question, leading some researchers to use other, less popular models. Organisms from elsewhere across the tree of life might offer unique genetic structures, physiology closer to that of humans, or faster generation times to accelerate investigations into gene regulation, evolution, and development.
Historically, given the lack of detailed gene-linkage maps and extensive mutant libraries for such organisms, progress with little-used models was frustratingly slow. But the advent of genomics and transcriptomics has created a “democratization” of model systems, says John (Jack) Werren, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Rochester in New York.
“Once you have the genomic information, then you can target genes much more efficiently,” says Werren. Researchers can match phenotype ...
