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Review Molecular Methods: Blessing or Curse?

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Relict Species

Abstract

Conservation genetic studies make use of molecular methods to obtain valuable information which help optimizing management strategies especially for threatened species. This chapter presents an overview of different molecular markers (microsatellites, AFLPs, RFLPs, RAPDs, mtDNA, allozymes) and their applications in conservation and genetic studies. Microsatellites have shown to be, though expensive, currently the most popular genetic marker as the high degree of polymorphism is ideal to study small geographical scales of species. RFLPs, RAPDs and allozymes still represent useful markers for studies of both, small and larger geographical scales. Low degree of polymorphism, no detection of alleles and low reproducibility characterize some drawbacks. To examine phylogeography MtDNA seems to be the best choice.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the professorship of Ecosystem Management, ETH (Jaboury Ghazoul) for funding. Furthermore, we are grateful for comments and corrections from Christopher Kaiser, Chris Kettle, Axel Hochkirch, and Andrea Pluess.

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  1. ETH Zürich, ITES-Ecosystem Management, Universitätstrasse 16, CH-8092, Zürich, Switzerland

    Aline Finger & Charlotte Klank

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  1. Aline Finger
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  2. Charlotte Klank
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Correspondence to Aline Finger .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Musée National d´Histoire Naturelle Luxembourg, 25, rue Münster, 2160, Luxembourg

    Jan Christian Habel

  2. Institute of Ecology and Environmental Chemistry, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Scharnhorststr. 1, 21335, Lüneburg, Germany

    Thorsten Assmann

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Finger, A., Klank, C. (2010). Review Molecular Methods: Blessing or Curse?. In: Habel, J.C., Assmann, T. (eds) Relict Species. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-92160-8_18

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