Taxonomy is fundamental to understanding the variety of life
forms, and exciting expansions in molecular biology are re-
volutionising the obtained data. This volume reviews the ma-
jor molecular biological techniques that are applied in ta-
xonomy. The chapters are arranged in three main sections:1)
Overviews of important topics in molecular taxonomy; 2) Case
studies of the successful application of molecular methods
to taxonomic and evolutionary questions; 3) Protocols for a
range of generally applicable methods. The described techni-
ques include DNA-DNA hybridization, DNA fingerprinting, RFLP
analysis, and PCR sequencing.