Recently Scientist have mapped out the genome of the bladderwort to find astonishing discoveries. The bladderwort is a small carnivorous aquatic plant found nearly everyone on the planet. It has a relatively small genome when compared to other plants, about 80 million base pairs. But what is astonishing is the very large number of genes it possesses. It has 28500 genes which is very high for the amount of genetic information stored. Scientist have found that this is due to a very high rate of genetic turnover in the plant. It has been shown to have a whole genome duplication three times. To account for this high rate of duplication there is also a high rate of deletion. The species has been found to quickly delete unused and duplicated genes constantly leading to a very specific and gene dense genome. A bladderwort has about 3% of non-functional DNA while humans have nearly 90%. This strategy is most likely an adaptation for the very variable and unpredictable environments bladderworts live in and allows them to quickly adapt and change to new environments. This is an astonishing discovery in the field of genetics due to the high density of translated regions in the bladderwort's genome.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/02/23/the-mysterious-genes-of-carnivorous-bladderwort-reveal-themselves/
Akhil
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