Biodiversity Measures in Agriculture Using DNA
2011
How to measure biodiversity? One of the possibilities is to use DNA. The mention of DNA can hint evolution, but this question is much more complicated and beyond the proposition of a biodiversity measure. The reasons stated for use DNA instead of other possible molecules could be that it is stable and responsible for the transmission of traits to future generations. But another reason is simple that it is suitable for measures. First, due to universality among all living things. Second, because it is a big molecule, constituted by variations of just four bases, making it easy to make a great number of sequence comparisons and used it on biodiversity measures. When individuals to be compared are similar, a greater number of comparisons have to be made to obtain a quantification of the differences among them. Conservation biology is not concerned only with the extinction of species, but also with diversity within species or subspecies, where accurate measures of diversity may be required. A third reason is that a good amount of methodologies is already developed to study its nature. DNA markers when used to study biodiversity are frequently designed for a great number of comparisons of similarities or differences among individuals, groups of individuals, or populations. DNA is the code for protein synthesis, but in most of the studies DNA markers are considered exclusively for comparison, which may not to be linked or recognized to be linked with any trait or adaptability of the individual. There are lots of kinds of markers, and one important thought to have in mind is that there is not a best one among them, but the choice should consider the species to be studied and the objective of the diversity analysis.
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