What molecule?

Molecular Methods for Phylogenetics

Mark Blaxter for Zoo4 EvoCore

see here for a table of different sorts of methods used...

A table of the sorts of molecular markers used for phylogenetics, and what sorts of questions they are useful for.

molecular marker

robustness

gene evolution

parentage

diversity

populations

phylogeny to 5 My

to 50 My

to 500 My

to 3500 My

cytogenetics

yes

-

-

-

*

*

~

~

~

DNA hybridisation

yes

-

-

-

-

~

****

~

-

isozymes

yes

~

~

~

*

***

**

*/~

-

restriction fragment length polymorphism

yes

~

~

~

***

***

**

~

-

single strand conformation polymorphism

yes (~)

~

**

**

**

*

-

-

-

denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis

yes (~)

~

**

**

**

*

-

-

-

randomly amplified polymorphic DNA

(~)

~

**

**

***

~

-

-

-

variable number tandem repeats

yes

~

***

***

****

~

-

-

-

microsattelite PCR

yes

~

****

****

****

~

-

-

-

sequencing

yes

*****

****

****

****

*****

*****

*****

*****

Last Updated on 1/11/99
By Mark Blaxter