The procedure has been successfully exploited for the estimation of genetic diversity within bacterial populations. It involves PCR amplification of a gene of interest (often 16S rRNA genes) with fluorescent dye-labeled primers, followed by multiple single restriction digests done in parallel. The resulting fragments are then separated by capillary electrophoresis with an internal size standard to determine the lengths of the terminal (fluorescently labeled) fragments. Each distinct terminal restriction fragment is considered an operational taxonomic unit (OTU), thus the choice of restriction enzymes can impact the number of OTUs observed in each sample and the calculation of diversity statistics (Collins RE, Rocap G 2007 Nucleic Acids Res 35:W58).  RFLP; restriction enzyme choice: http://rocaplab.ocean.washington.edu/tools/repk.