Molecular ecology
Molecular ecology describes that aspect of ecology that deals with the molecular genetic basis of ecological structures and processes. The term has been in use with this meaning since the early 1990s (foundation of the international journal Molecular Ecology 1992/93). More rarely, in a broader sense, all other aspects of ecology are also understood to include where ecological analyzes are carried out at the molecular level, e.g. B. in the context of chemical ecology .
The methods used in molecular ecology in the narrower sense are those of molecular biology , although the scientific questions are of an ecological nature. Methods used were or are e.g. B. RAPD (randomly amplified polymorphic DNA), restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), DNA sequencing , microsatellite analysis, DNA probes (e.g. for bacteria), targeted deactivation of genes , the creation of cDNA and genomic DNA banks etc.
The analyzes allow diverse findings on the genetic composition of a population , on the gene flow between populations, on species differentiation and relationship analysis or on the species composition of microorganism communities .
The content of ecological genetics is similar to that of molecular ecology . In terms of content, molecular ecology often merges into molecular evolutionary biology, which is why many of its orientations are also subsumed under the term evolutionary ecology .
literature
- Molecular Ecology . Blackwell Publ., Oxford Vol. 1 (1992) ff. ISSN 0962-1083 .
- Bernd Schierwater, Bruno Streit , Günter P. Wagner, Rob DeSalle (eds.): Molecular Ecology and Evolution. Approaches and applications (Experientia Supplementum (EXS); Vol. 69). Birkhäuser, Basel 1994, ISBN 3-7643-2942-4 .