Advances in Molecular Ecology (NATO Science Series A: Life Sciences — Vol. 306)

Abstract

This book contains the proceedings of a meeting of the NATO Advanced Study Institute on Advances in Molecular Ecology, held at Erice, Italy in March 1998. There are 14 chapters, beginning with an overview of the history of the subject area which Gary Carvalho traces back to the ecological genetics school of A. J. Cain, P. M. Sheppard and E. B. Ford. This useful introduction sets the whole discipline in context and provides a basis for what follows. What does follow is an eclectic range of contributions which nevertheless give something of the flavour of the current state of the art. There are some theoretical chapters, dealing with the phylogenetic analysis of population data (Hillis); the estimation of migration rates, contrasting newer coalescent approaches favourably against the more conventional methods based on FST (Beerli); parentage analysis in plants (Schnabel); the relative merits of micro-and minisatellites as markers (Estoup & Angers); and, at the end of the book, a very useful review of many of the software packages that are available for conducting different aspects of population genetic analysis (Schnabel et al.). Microbes are the focus of three of the chapters, dealing with aspects of present-day (Muyzer) as well as palaeo-ecology (Rollo), and bacterial speciation (Young). The evolutionary implications of clonal reproduction are treated from an animal perspective in an excellent review by Vrijenhoek. Other topics of evolutionary importance addressed include the use of molecular markers in the study of natural selection (Mitton), hybridisation (Rieseberg), and differentiation in aquatic populations, both inland (Hebert) and at sea (Hauser & Ward).