Molecular Ecology

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"Over the past few decades, molecular biology has revolutionized ecological research. During that time, methods for genetically characterizing individuals, populations, and species have developed at a truly impressive rate, and continue to provide us with a wealth of novel data and fascinating new insights into the ecology and evolution of plants, animals, fungi, algae, and bacteria. Molecular markers allow us, among other things, to quantify genetic diversity, track the movements of individuals, measure inbreeding, identify the remains of individuals, characterize new species, and retrace historical patterns of dispersal. More recently, increasingly sophisticated genomic techniques have provided remarkable insight into the functioning of different genes, and the ways in which evolutionary adaptations (or lack thereof) can influence the survival of organisms in changing environments. All of these applications are of great academic interest, and are also frequently used to address practical ecological questions such as which endangered populations are most at risk from inbreeding, or how much hybridization has occurred between genetically modified crops and their wild relatives. Every year it becomes easier and more cost-effective to acquire molecular genetic data, and laboratories around the world can now regularly accomplish previously unthinkable tasks such as describing entire communities based on nothing more than remnant DNA extracted from water samples, or comparing a suite of functional genes between individuals from different populations"-- Provided by publisher