Only now, this spring I have got introduced to DNA barcoding. This is method to identify the species of plants, animals and fungus - a practical method for distinguishing species using a short DNA sequence from a standardized location on the genome.
For a centuries identification of organisms had been carried out by morphologycal characters, but the determination of many species is not easy, for example, in entomology identification of pests deeper than genus using only morphologycal characters without molecular biology is very complicated. For DNA barcoding you do not need a high quality materials, you can do it also from old or damaged specimen. This method was proposed in 2003 by Paul D.N. Hebert and nowadays this method is not expensive, it is fast and reliable.
My attention paid article about effectiveness of barcoding in practice and in theory: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0100755
How to understand the limits to DNA barcoding and the evolutionary mechanisms? Is DNA barcoding so reliable that society already can refuse from old school methods to determine organisms: bothanics, morphology, taxonomic classification etc.? Or maybe… DNA barcoding as a method has also obvious disadvantages and we still need an experts of old school methods?
Hi Dmitrijs
ReplyDeleteI think your different background will bring a good discussion during the panel discussions. This is already visible from the post: you bring in your own experience from the entomological side. That is good!
There may be some formal things to be improved to your post. You would need to include more (also scientific) references as a reference list below. Please check some of your colleagues' posts to get an impression.
Regards
Theo
Comment by Ruth
ReplyDeleteDear Dmitrijs
Your blog includes good researched points! Thanks a lot.
As Theo said, you bring definitely a good background with you, you only need to work on some formal parts of citations.
I agree with Theo on the necessity on referring to the scientific papers you used for your blog. It is necessary to declare every source your information comes from, otherwise your blog would be a plagiarism. I could show you how to do citation, let me know, if you are interested.
Also you should make sure to answer all questions we had to answer. They were found on moodle. Maybe you didn’t see/found them? If so, let me know, if I can help you finding all necessary documents for your blog no 2.
Looking forward to your next blog. Ruth
Hey Dmitrijs,
ReplyDeleteWas very interesting to read and made me think about the limits of classical taxonomy. I also heard of some butterflies, which can't be identifyed just by morphological characteristics. So i think the barcoding technique really could help there.