Molecular ecology

Molecular Ecology denotes that aspect of ecology that deals with the molecular genetic basis of ecological structures and processes. The term has since the early 1990s, with this meaning content in use (foundation of the international journal Molecular Ecology 1992/93 ). More rarely, all other aspects of ecology be understood in a broader sense including addition, where at the molecular level ecological analyzes are operated, eg in the context of chemical ecology.

The methods used in molecular ecology in the strict sense are those of molecular biology, but where are the scientific problems of an ecological nature. Methods have been or are used, for example, RAPD ( randomly amplified polymorphic DNA), restriction fragment length polymorphism ( RFLP), sequencing of DNA, microsatellite analysis, DNA probes ( for example bacteria), targeted gene silencing, the application of cDNA and genomic DNA libraries, etc.

The analyzes allow for many insights into the genetic composition of a population, gene flow between populations to Artdifferenzierung and kinship analysis or for the species composition of microbial communities.

A similar content as the molecular ecology, the ecological genetics. The molecular ecology of content is often over into the molecular evolutionary biology, which is why many of your alignments are subsumed under the term evolutionary ecology.