The framing objective of this project is to direct physiological, biochemical, and genomic techniques toward understanding the mechanisms by which mangroves are so superbly suited to their extreme environment. Although much of our own recent work has been on Rhizophora mangle, a neotropical representative of the most widespread and arguably, most important mangrove family, the transcriptome database at the center of the project is intended to incorporate all available mangrove sequences.

While the ecology of mangroves and mangrove systems has a history which is both broad and deep, genomic studies are in their infancy. Physiologically, mangroves epitomize the "tolerance" strategy, but along with extremophiles from arctic, alpine and desert environments, they represent essentially untapped resources for understanding fundamental mechanisms of stress tolerance. Perhaps, since this is what most people seem to want, the mangrove genomes contain the "magic bullet" that will allow someone to engineer (and, undoubtedly, patent) more tolerant crops.

Throughout the world, mangrove ecosystems are endangered. Mariculture, resorts and urban development, and cutting for wood products have reduced their extent by more than 35% since 1980. Mangrove re-establishment is complicated - a single high tide or storm surge can wipe out an entire plantation. Yet, the Earth and its people, all of us, depend on mangroves and similarly fragile sytems, for support. With this project, our goal is to enable an integrated model of mangrove organismal biology, and offer what we can to future generations.

The core of the transcriptome database lies in the results of a Roche/454 sequencing project targeting Rhizophora mangle and Heritiera littoralis. In addition, all other mangrove sequences available in public databases were added in October, 2008, with annotation where needed. We intend to up-date the contents at least annually, and more often as data become available. The database is fully searchable. For complete details, see About, or Help or just try it out.