Editorial: Comparative and evolutionary analyses of organelle genomes

This Research Topic focuses on studies of organelle genomes, which has been a highly active area of research during the last years. Our focus on organelle genomes fulfills their potential to perform full-scale comparisons for non-model species. This is because they are typically smaller than nuclear genomes, and modern sequencing techniques and bioinformatic approaches often allow researchers to reliably assemble and annotate them. Dozens of approaches have been published describing ways to perform assemblies and annotations of chloroplast and mitochondrial genomes, and how to create alignments for phylogenetic analyses. Comparisons of chloroplast genomes are especially important for lineages of plants with unusual lifestyles, such as parasitic plants.