Molecular Tools

Abstract

There exists a wide variety of laboratory assays for revealing molecular genetic markers. Detailed laboratory protocols can be found in the papers and manuals listed at the end of this chapter, but in practice there is no substitute for hands-on training “at the bench” under the guidance of an experienced practitioner. Therefore, this chapter will merely outline the procedural steps of various molecular methods and will emphasize instead the nature of genetic information produced by each of the several molecular techniques that has had major impact in ecological and evolutionary studies.

Perhaps nowhere has the power of the scientific method been more brilliantly demonstrated than in the development of procedures for the study of the chemistr of life.

M.O. Dayhoff and R.V. Eck. 1968