CRISPR/Cas9 has become an extremely powerful tool in ecological genomics (Bono et al 2015b). It has facilitated the analysis of ecologically rich species in a context in which traditionally has been difficult. We are actively using genome editing tools such as CRISPR in our cactophilic Drosophila to functionally test loci for a number of our projects (evolution of reproductive incompatibilities, larval behavior, genetics of adaptation, etc). Here is one nice example of our first test using CRISPR. This is a D. mojavensis strain in which we knocked out the white locus using non-homologous end-joining (NHEJ) using CRISPR.
Since then we have used NHEJ to knockout a number of candidate genes as well as allele swapping using homology directed repair (HDR).
Matzkin Lab 