DNA-DNA Hybridization, Phylogenetic Reconstruction and the Fossil Record

Abstract

In 1962 Zuckerkandl & Pauling suggested that the amino acid sequence of proteins might evolve in a clock-like fashion and thus may be useful for phylogenetic reconstruction. Since then, many different molecular approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction have been proposed (Wilson et al., 1977). Enthusiasm for the clock hypothesis was dampened by the discovery that rates of molecular evolution for many macromolecules have been highly variable through time (Romero-Herrera et al., 1979). However, the contribution of molecular characters to the study of phylogeny is not necessarily dependent on the notion of a molecular clock and molecular approaches continue to be an important source of phylogenetic information. One of the more powerful and cost-effective molecular techniques for phylogenetic purposes is DNA-DNA hybridization, which measures the single-copy nuclear DNA sequence divergences between species.