Molecular ecology is a field of evolutionary biology that is concerned with applying molecular population genetics, molecular phylogenetics, and more recently genomics to traditional ecological questions (e.g., species diagnosis, conservation and assessment of biodiversity, species-area relationships, and many questions in behavioral ecology). It is virtually synonymous with the field of "Ecological Genetics" as pioneered by Theodosius Dobzhansky, E. B. Ford, and others. These fields are united in their attempt to study genetic-based questions "out in the field" as opposed to the laboratory. Molecular ecology is related to the field of Conservation genetics.
Methods frequently include using microsatellites to determine gene flow and hybridization between populations. The development of molecular ecology is also closely related to the use of DNA microarrays, which allows for the simultaneous analysis of the expression of thousands of different genes. real-time polymerase chain reaction may also be used to analyze gene expression as a result of changes in environmental conditions or different response by differently adapted individuals.
Read more about Molecular Ecology: Bacterial Diversity
Other articles related to "molecular ecology, molecular, ecology":
... Molecular ecological techniques have recently been used to study in situ questions of bacterial diversity ...
... Molecular Ecology (in press) Sillero-Zubiri, C, J ... Afroalpine ecology, solitary foraging and intense sociality amongst Ethiopian wolves ... Molecular Ecology 10,319-336 Wayne, R ...
... Main article Molecular ecology The important relationship between ecology and genetic inheritance predates modern techniques for molecular analysis ... Molecular ecological research became more feasible with the development of rapid and accessible genetic technologies, such as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) ... The rise of molecular technologies and influx of research questions into this new ecological field resulted in the publication Molecular Ecology in 1992 ...
Famous quotes containing the word ecology:
“... the fundamental principles of ecology govern our lives wherever we live, and ... we must wake up to this fact or be lost.”
—Karin Sheldon (b. c. 1945)