Physiological ecologists are in a unique position to bridge the gap between evolutionary biology and functional genomics, and this integration will be critical for predicting the responses of organisms to future global change drivers. Microarray technology, along with proteomic and metabolomic approaches, may revolutionize our ability to define mechanisms of response that are even more primary than physiological processes. This knowledge will improve predictive power when scaling from the individual to the ecosystem, which is a recently emerging goal of many global change scientists. Although the potential pay-off from inclusion of genomic approaches is high, these technologies are often not straightforward and may require extensive training. Likewise, research focusing on functional genomics will gain from collaborations with physiological ecologists and evolutionary biologists who can offer insight into expanding phenotypic analyses and assist with designing more ecologically relevant experiments. Such collaborations promise to be extremely fruitful as more genome sequences for ecological model systems (such as poplar) become available. This symposium will highlight how the integration of functional genomics into the fields of physiological ecology and evolutionary biology may be mutually beneficial to both ecologists and evolutionary biologists. Presentations will focus on current research that has successfully integrated these approaches, critical concerns for experimentation, and future opportunities with newly sequenced genomes. Our goal will be to open lines of communication between ecologists and researchers who focus on functional genomics, in the hopes of defining new questions and solutions addressing the effects of global change drivers on biota.