Role of Ecogenomics in Conservation and Management

Ecogenomics is the scientific approach to understand the relationship between structural and functional aspects of genomes with biotic/abiotic environmental factors. The classification of ecology depends upon the overall complexity (behavioral and population ecology) of an organism (plant and animal ecology) and system under investigation (soil and forest ecology). The molecular techniques adopted by these various ecology branches result in a new field known as ecological genomics or ecogenomics that focuses on an organism’s overall development during the evolutionary period. It is an interdisciplinary research field covering ecological science, microbiology, 176environmental and molecular biology, toxicology, physiology, chemistry, etc. The study related to the ecology of plants has a direct relationship with the adaptation mechanism because plants have no alternative to cope with the environment in which they grow. The world is facing biodiversity loss at an alarming rate, with a loss of 90% crop varieties in a century from the field. It is essential to select the genes in biological pathways responsible for an organism’s stability in the ecological system. The challenge is to understand the basic phenomenon behind adaptation, migration, inbreeding mechanism of endangered or critically endangered species. in ecogenomics, we know that the genes are responsible for the effective management strategies from a conservation point of view. Therefore, in this chapter, we discuss various aspects of community shaping and visualization. The community’s function and structure need to be studied due to the availability of plenty of molecular data. Further, the role of ecogenomics and multiomic approaches in conservation and management will also be emphasized.